2022 was great, but how can we combat the current cost of living crisis and make 2023 even better?

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First of all, happy New Year from Regenerate and a huge thank you to everyone who has either supported or engaged with us in any way over the past year.

2022 brought more growth than ever for us, and as we move into 2023 we are reflecting on what we have achieved over the past year:

  • Our team engaged with over 2700 young people in the community and in local schools
  • Worked with 224 young people on a regular basis through our youth club, sports sessions and mentoring projects.
  • Partnered with 11 local schools to increase the reach of our mentoring service
  • Given 21 young people (referred to us because they faced barriers into education or work) paid employment and mentoring support on our Feel Good coffee carts
  • Provided professional counselling for 15 young people.
  • Organised life changing trips including a 100-mile youth hike in Scotland, an epic camping adventure in Wales, a trip with young adults to Kenya and a further 39 different UK trips during the holidays.
  • Funded over 200,000 meals through the Roehampton Community Boxes and our partner projects in Kenya and Romania, who work with children living in poverty.

 

We are really proud to say that:

 

75% of the young people at our youth clubs and mentoring programs and

95% of the young people we employed at The Feel Good Bakery

showed significant signs of improvement and growth in their confidence, self-management, social skills and ability to plan.

 

We want to continue this work in 2023 and keep reaching more young people to help them improve their lives and impact the world for good.

 

A few people also recently asked us how the cost of living crisis is affecting our young people and what we’re doing to combat it…

 

Our services are are now more and more in demand. The need for mentoring in particular is higher than ever as several schools and healthcare professionals are referring more and more young people in need of support.

The cost-of-living crisis has had a disproportionate effect on the young people (and their families) who engage with us. Families from our community are struggling to cope and the wellbeing of young people is becoming more important than ever. These struggles are not only physically challenging, but they are leading to even more mental health issues, low confidence, and challenging emotions.

We are mentoring as any young people as we can, however unfortunately, we can’t provide all the support that we would like to due to a lack of resources. We now have a list of young people waiting to access the service, and so our fundraising priority right now is to grow our team of mentors to be able to support these young people.

Please click here if you are able to help us with this.

 

Further to stretching our mentoring service to as many young people as we can, we are also currently providing a safe warm space at our youth club for young people to come, hang out and access a variety of activities/workshops 4 nights a week. We have altered our opening hours to be able to provide this straight after school – ensuring young people are not left out in the cold, and we are providing hot home cooked nutritious meals during these sessions. We were also really lucky to be able to provide cost of living support to 20 families before Christmas, thanks to a generous donation from a friend of Regenerate.

Thank you to everyone for continuing to support Regenerate and we hope 2023 brings many blessings and much more growth!