The Woolley Edge site have been working in partnership with Yorkshire based charity The Youth Association for six years, bringing benefits to both sides. The partnership takes a number of different forms including Youth Association staff helping the fundraising efforts at Woolley Edge and young people donating their services as mystery shoppers, reporting useful customer service feedback to the Moto site. In addition, grants made by Moto in the Community have helped the Youth Association deliver three successful projects:

– A grant was made in 2016 to rebuild the garden walls at the association’s head office in Wakefield. This means that the garden is now a usable space and can be used by young people for team building exercises and healthy outdoor activities.

– Funding enabled ten young adults (aged between 18 and 24) all actively looking for work, to attend a residential course. The visit to the Brathay Residential Centre in Cumbria took place in autumn 2016. At the centre the young people worked on a variety of skills and activities, both indoor and outdoor, designed to help improve their employment prospects. These included presentation skills, problem solving, and team building activities. The young delegates also worked with key workers to create an induction pack, for the key workers to use in their future work with other young adults. Following the residential trip five of the ten young delegates found employment.

– Following funding from Moto in the Community the Youth Association ran a series of activities with a Roma community outside of Doncaster. Relatively new to the UK and with low education and employment prospects the activities were designed to build skills in the following areas:
• Food, Nutrition and Cooking
• Job Readiness
• Safe-guarding
• Team-building
By the end of 2016, 28 young people in the community had completed a nationally accredited certificate in one of these areas.

Dmitry Fedotov, Enterprise & Communities Manager at the Youth Association’s said: “Our grass-roots work in the community is about creating opportunities, building self-confidence and aiding the personal development of Yorkshire’s young people. Working alongside MITC and thanks to generous funding we have been able to deliver on some important projects that have made a difference to many young people’s futures. We look forward to building on the partnership and continuing our work together.”