Read all about our funding in the field of youth social action over the past decade in our report Inspiring a Generation: Lessons from funding youth social action and volunteering in UK events.
It’s #iwill week 2024 – a time to celebrate the incredible work young people are doing across the UK to improve their lives and communities through social action. Since, 2018 Spirit has been working with #iwill partners, the National Lottery Community Fund and UK Youth, to help make youth social action a habit for life for young people across the UK. We’ve been investing in quality programmes which reflect the 6 principles of great youth social action. We’ve done this through our flagship youth social action programmes EmpowHER and Inspire 2022.
Inspire 2022 was a programme of youth-led social action and community events across the UK but with focus on the needs of the whole community. To mark the centenary of women’s suffrage, our EmpowHER programme aimed to develop and skill up young women and girls to use their voices for positive change in their communities. Both programmes were jointly funded by the #iwill Fund and delivered by UK Youth across the UK.
Now feels like a good time to look back reflectively on each programme and Spirit’s wider youth social action learning. When looking back a few common themes emerge.
Reaching beyond the usual suspects
We wanted to reach young people who had never taking part in youth social action. We had a clear intent on addressing the participation gap. The majority of young people who took part in both programmes were new to youth social action.
A staggering 88% of young people who took part in Inspire 2022 said they would participate in youth social action again. We also knew reaching more than just the usual suspects could bring about gains in the wellbeing of young people. Traditionally, young people who don’t take part in things tend to have low wellbeing. We knew their wellbeing could benefit by taking part in Inspire 2022 and EmpowHER and this proved to be the case.
Using the power of events
We wanted to use the power of events to raise the profile of youth social action. Both programmes, like Spirit, were born of an event. EmpowHER marked 100 years since women begin given the vote and Inspire 2022 placed itself at the heart of the many mega events and commemorations taking place in 2022 and 2023. Both programmes empowered young people to organise and lead on events-based social action activities for their communities. They left a lasting legacy of community cohesion, embedded through event’s based social action.
Community benefit
We know of the benefits to young people in taking part in youth social action. It can improve their wellbeing, improve their employment and leadership skills and create healthy volunteering habits. It could be tempting to think that youth social action only has benefits for young people, but our experience suggests otherwise. Great youth social action needs to be socially impactful and have clear intended benefit to a community. This could be people who attend events and activities run by young people, beneficiaries of a particular cause, or a wider place-based community who benefit indirectly over the short and long term from young people being involved in positive activities. We have observed that young people (and/or those working with them) often conceive of the main beneficiaries of their activities as being other young people. However, we have seen significant benefits where young people have been encouraged to work with and for the benefit of the wider community.
Over the past eleven years Spirit of 2012 has funded over 30,000 opportunities for young people to volunteer and take part in social action. We couldn’t have done it without our friends at National Lottery Community Fund and UK Youth. Thank you for all your support.
The young people involved in our funded projects made valuable contributions to the events and communities they were part of, bringing diverse perspectives and ideas. They reported improved wellbeing, skills, employment prospects, and increased confidence. In some cases, their participation carried on beyond the life of a single project and created longer term habits.
We saw broader benefits too: the visibility of young people as volunteers challenged negative perceptions and fostered longer term engagement in their communities, contributing to social cohesion.
For Spirit, youth social action works best when it is youth-led but with a focus on the needs of the whole community. Both can and should benefit.
Happy #iwill week.