Royal Wedding Charitable Gift Fund: Children fulfilling their potential
29th March 2011
By building confidence, aspirations and pride, Keyfund opens doors. New experiences. New skills. New futures.
Keyfund
Keyfund is a charity which invests in ideas. Young people design and deliver their own projects, building confidence, self-esteem and 12 Keyfund skills. By building confidence, aspirations and pride, Keyfund opens doors. New experiences. New skills. New futures.
Case study - Mothers and Mates
Mothers and Mates: A truly life changing project where a group of young women found a way of making their dreams reality through the unusual outlet of poetry.
Young mothers Jodie, Sandie, Adele, Sarah, Amy and Laura, aged 15-16 formed the 'Mothers and Mates' group. The girls, from varying backgrounds came together through Northumberland Education Other Than At School (EOTAS). They got involved Keyfund because they were trying to find ways of dealing with the issues they were facing in life. These issues included coping with being a young mum, relationship challenges, anger management and mental health issues. They had discovered, with the help of their facilitators Alison and Karen, that poetry helped them to express themselves in a positive way and prevented them from lashing out as they previously had.
At Keyfund Stage One the girls put together a book of poetry and had it professionally published. The girls hoped that it would not only help them, but that other young people in similar situations could read it and know they were not alone.
The girls did an amazing job and sent Keyfund a professionally printed book called 'Open Your Mind' filled with expressive poetry.
Amy, Jodie and Adele progressed onto Keyfund Stage Two, using it as an opportunity to launch their book. They invited peers, teachers, friends and family along to help them celebrate their success and to start selling their books. Even when things got tricky they did not give up and held a successful event, with 40 guests attending and selling over 300 copies of their book.
The girls all made a huge amount of progress during their time using Keyfund. It was their confidence and self-awareness that blossomed most. In addition they all gained an Arts award.
The experience enabled the young women to turn their lives around, one of the group members explained: “I write poetry now, instead of self-harming”.
The Mothers and Mates group have gone from strength to strength with two of the young women progressing into higher education.
Amy, Jodie and Adele entered a poetry competition where they beat off tough competition to win the Regional Final for the North East. They then went on to compete in the National Final in Manchester, which was a great achievement. The group continue to write poetry and recently participated in an open mic night, reading their work aloud to a live audience.
Prince William and Catherine Middleton have selected KeyFund as one of the charities to benefit from their Royal Wedding Charitable Gift Fund, which they created to help celebrate their wedding.
For further information, visit the Royal Wedding Charitable Gift Fund website.
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