Thanks to National Lottery players, a partnership proposal by Youth Focus North East and NE Youth to continue to support and build on the success achieved by the North East Youth Alliance (NEYA) since 2020 has been given the go-ahead.
The youth work sector in the North East has faced significant challenges over time, not least through reductions in public sector funding, an increasingly competitive environment of grant funding and the continued impact of COVID-19 and the cost of living crises. However; it is a testament to the sector in the region that during these challenging times we have seen many examples of local and regional collaboration coming together to erectly meet and address these challenges head on.
Both organisations understand that they are stronger together than working in competition and isolation, so back in 2020 created the NEYA in order to bring capacity to enable people to work more collaboratively across the sector, provide support to improve the quality of youth work, increase opportunities for young people and enable the sector to respond effectively to the multitude of challenges young people and youth organisations face.
The NEYA will receive £469,554.00 from The National Lottery Community Fund, following approval by their Committee in December, for a two year extension of the work from May 2025 to April 2027.
The NEYA has been created to support the development and sustainability of the people and organisations working to improve the lives of young people across the region. Our ambition is to support a culture shift across the youth and community sector – to get people thinking and working differently.
The overall outcomes are:
- Improved capacity, collaboration and co-ordination in the youth sector
- Increased influence of young people’s voices in shaping of services
- Increased sustainability of services and support for and with young people
The further 2 years’ investment will enable us to build on and sustain the positive impact we have achieved, including work on:
- More co-ordinated approaches to effective youth work provision;
- Coherent voice for the regions young people;
- Better co-ordinated and rationalised funding bids;
- Increased sustainability of services and support for young people;
- Stronger collaboration between partners;
- Improved leadership for organisations and the wider sector;
- Improved communication, trust, transparency and co-operation within the youth and community sector, and across communities and partners.
To support the direct involvement of young people in the NEYA we will utilising a proportion of the investment to employ two youth work apprentices to support our youth voice work.
“We are grateful to the players of the National Lottery for making our ambitious plans become a reality. Their investment will mean we continue to build on the strong foundations we have put in place over the past 5 years and sustain our support to young people, youth services and communities in the region to make a real, lasting and positive impact”
Kevin Franks, Chief Executive, Youth Focus North East
“Delighted to receive such excellent news that creates further investment in the North East Youth Sector. The work of the North East Youth Alliance has made significant progress during a very difficult period. The opportunity to continue this work is so important. Huge thank you to the players of the National Lottery for their continued support.”
Jon Niblo, Chief Executive, NE Youth
“We are delighted to be able to continue to support NEYA and the excellent work they do across the NE. Both Youth Focus North East and NE Youth bring considerable skills and experience to the partnership and have demonstrated their commitment to generous leadership, working together for the wider benefit of the sector rather than competing for limited resources. Lottery players expect and deserve to see the contribution they make through playing the National Lottery used for the benefit of communities, in this case young people, and this collaboration clearly demonstrates that.”
Duncan Nicholson, Regional Head of Funding, North East and Cumbria – National Lottery Community Fund
To learn more about how you can be part of this alliance CLICK HERE