The Story of IGNITE
Earlier this year, VANEL successfully applied for funding from The Big Lottery’s ‘Reaching Communities’ Fund, for a three year Community Development Programme, which is now known as IGNITE. IGNITE aims to inspire, motivate and support young people between the ages of 16 and 30 to become leaders within their communities by giving them the opportunity to take the lead on community development projects of their choosing. The funding for the IGNITE programme comes just a matter of months after VANEL’s original three-year Big Lottery Funded ‘Reaching Communities’ programme, ‘Enfuse’, came to an end in March 2016.
With the exciting emergence of the IGNITE programme, which champions the idea of youth-led volunteering, came the need to recruit an equally exciting Youth Leadership Team. Back in June, job adverts were placed online and on the VANEL website, advertising two Youth Leadership Worker Positions. Over 50 people applied for the two posts, with seven being invited to attend an assessment day, and from this, four were chosen to be interviewed. The two successful applicants selected to fulfil the role of Youth Leadership Worker were Victoria Russell and Lisa Anderson. Also part of the IGNITE team is VANEL’s Communication Assistant, Helen Pickett. Overseeing the programme as Youth Leadership Manager, is former “Enfuse” Youth Development Manager, Jenny Hodson. Together, the four of them will be working with four part-time Youth Leadership Mentors, who, as of September 2016, will be in their final year of university.
L -R Youth Leadership Worker’s Victoria Russell and Lisa Anderson, Youth Leadership Manager, Jenny Hodson and Communication Assistant, Helen Pickett.
Victoria and Helen joined the team at the beginning of August, with Lisa joining them later on in the month after working out her notice as Youth Ranger for East Lindsey Council. In the absence of Lisa, Victoria and Helen were given the difficult task of branding the then unnamed IGNITE programme. Following three weeks of intense research, discussion and the elimination of other brand name alternatives, the team agreed that the programme would operate under the moniker ‘IGNITE’. With the name of the programme having now been finalised, Victoria, Lisa and Helen were able to begin the process of creating marketing materials in the form of posters and articles on the VANEL website.
See below the first official IGNITE poster.
The Youth Leadership Team are currently supporting 18-year-old Shona O’Reilly from Grimsby. Shona is organising a vintage themed Coffee Morning, on Friday 30th September 2016, in aid of Macmillan Cancer Support. Shona has successfully managed to secure a venue for the coffee morning event free of charge. The event will take place at Tukes’ Café in People’s Park from 11:00am until 2:00pm. Tukes’ Café have also kindly agreed to donate all the tea, coffee, milk and sugar for the event. Shona has also been working hard to promote a cake competition which will take place at the event and creating certificates for cake competition participants. The cake competition has three categories they are: Best Sponge, Best Tray Bake and Best Muffin or Cupcake. It is hoped that the competitions will a large number of local baking enthusiasts to get involved and help support this fantastic cause. Furthermore, Shona also has been writing to, and visiting, local businesses and asking them to donate prizes for the event’s tombola and cake competition. In the space of just over one hour, Shona, with a little help from the IGNITE team, has already managed to get 14 businesses to donate prizes for the event. Prizes up for grabs so far include a Yankee Candle, a dress, a plaque, a necklace holder and a Pandora ring, to name a few.
See below the posters that Shona and the IGNITE team have created to advertise the Macmillan Coffee Morning event and the cake competition. Below is a photograph of the tombola prizes that have been donated by local businesses.
We may only be just a few short months into the programme, but already, we have had an amazing start. Over the past few weeks, the IGNITE Youth Leadership Team have been promoting the IGNITE programme at Franklin College and at the Grimsby Institute of Further and Higher Education’s (GIFHE) Fresher’s Fairs. From this, news of the IGNITE programme has been rapidly gaining momentum. The team are currently speaking to a number of young people with project ideas and helping them to get one step closer, to turning that idea, into a reality. If you are aged 16 to 30, and have an idea for a project, event or campaign which benefits your community, talk to VANEL. We can help you fund, set-up and launch your project, as well as put you in touch with like-minded young people who want to volunteer their time to your project. You have nothing by enquiring so don’t delay!
See below a photograph of our IGNITE stand at GIFHE’s Fresher’s Fair.
Contact
Ignite@vanel.org.uk
Call (01472) 315 437
Youth Leadership Manager
Contact Jenny Hodson
Jenny@vanel.org.uk
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Follow us on Twitter @IGNITEgy
