Inspire 2022
A youth-led social action programme inspired by the 10th anniversary of London 2012 and the major events of 2022.
Taking inspiration from the tenth anniversary of the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic games, Inspire 2022 was a youth-led, events-based, social action programme, funded by £1.2M from Spirit of 2012 and £500,000 from the #iWill fund (a joint investment between the National Lottery Community Fund and Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport) and designed in partnership with the Local Trust. It was delivered by UK Youth, in partnership with British Red Cross, Youth Action Northern Ireland, Youth Cymru, Youth Scotland and regional youth organisations who support young people in their local communities.
The programme used national and local events as a springboard for young
people to design positive activities for their own communities, bridging community
divides and giving young people a voice in a year of national celebration.
Key Recommendations
Directly fund grassroots organisations to reach underrepresented young people: Smaller, local, youth organisations are able to reach ‘under-represented’ young people and engage them in youth-led social action. Explicit targeting of funding at these organisations will help to further close the ‘participation gap’ in
youth social action.
- Prioritised development time and multi-year funding to build legacy: Dedicated development time and longer-term funding will enable young people to develop their ideas, bring them to fruition, follow-up on their events and inspire others to get involved in youth social action.
- Allow flexibility in delivery and protect budget for young people’s ideas: This ensures that young people can develop their social action ideas and bring them to delivery with support from youth workers that adapts to young people’s needs
- Build ‘events-based’ social action into guidance and training: UK Youth can enhance its social action offer and Social Action Guidance by incorporating the role that major national events can play in youth social action
- Integrate ‘team-based’ social action into youth social action modelling: Funding ‘teams’ of young people and opportunities to engage in team-based social action offers peer support (from other young people) and collective capacity
- Build on existing approaches to evaluating youth social action: Evaluation approaches should focus outcomes measurement on young people’s socio-emotional skills. The community impact of youth social action can also be captured over a longer timeframe with the right resource in place and by using more creative data collection methods.
