Youth Social Action Resource Hub

This Mental Health Toolkit was funded by The Mayor of London to support young people’s mental health. The toolkit was co-designed by Volunteering Matters and Young People who champion positive mental health.

The Green Influencers Scheme’s mission is to help young people connect with the natural environment. By taking part in youth-led projects, they learn and develop new skills, open up progression routes and help inspire their local communities to take meaningful action. In total 81 Green Influencers have taken part across Norfolk and 88 in Southampton, each Influencer spending an average of almost 10 hours connecting with nature and leading on climate action. Some projects: The Green Influencer newspaper; Team GreenPhone: The Polygon School’s repair shop for electronic devices; a traditional orchard; an allotment for young people without gardens at home.

This was London-based Skyway’s very own Come Dine with Me mini-series. Over a period of three weeks, a group of young people and workers planned, filmed, cooked and edited to create two Come Dine With Me episodes.
 The young people created a menu, budgeted and bought ingredients, then cooked a main course and dessert for the opposing team to judge. These are all useful life skills to combat food poverty and promote resilience during the cost-of-living crisis. Take a look at the video to see them in action!  

Young Food Ambassadors came together to launch their very own Right2Food Charter, calling on the Government to listen to their stories and those of millions of other young people across the UK who were living with increased levels of hunger and food poverty. They delivered their Right2Food Charter to 10 Downing Street with Dame Emma Thompson who is also supporting their advocacy. Since then, they have joined forces with Marcus Rashford’s #EndChildFoodPoverty campaign to make sure no child in the UK goes hungry.

Empathy is a skill that underpins other life skills - leadership, creativity, communication, resilience and tolerance. Kicking off in February each year with Empathy Week, this 5-week programme (fully supported with educational resources) uses the power of film and video to develop the skill of empathy. Participants produce a film of their own that allows students to put empathy into action about something they care about. If they wish, they can submit their film to the annual Empathy Week Global Awards. Empathy Week has engaged 140,000 students across 40+ countries and is free for all government and state schools worldwide.