£500 awards available to young people to make positive changes in their communities
Young people are being encouraged to try out ideas that make a difference by applying to Pounds for Purpose, a new programme launched by social enterprise agency Firstport.
This programme Pounds offers grants of £500 Along with guidance and support to applicants aged 16-26 to try out ideas that have a positive impact on people and the environment.
Pounds for Purpose hopes to inspire the next generation of change makers to take action in the issues they care about.
Firstport already supports a number of young people who are turning their interests and hobbies into ideas that make a difference.
24-year-old Lily Asch’s journey started when she gave a TEDx University of Edinburgh talk sharing her experience about mental illness as a young person. She realised how powerful it was to share her experience, but she was also amazed by how it opened the floor for others to share their own insights with her. That’s how her idea started to develop.
She was awarded £500 seed funding as part of Firstport’s Community Ideas Fund in 2017, to help set up Real Talk’s website. Real Talk is a mental health storytelling social enterprise that runs community storytelling evenings, where real stories about mental ill health are told by real people to an open audience. To date, they have run 12 events with 44 speakers share to over 450 audience members.
Lily said: “Running Real Talk has been transformative, personally, professionally, and also in the community. I’ve used storytelling and creative practice to empower personal stories and spark meaningful conversations about mental health. The feedback has been great, we once were told “keep this event going, it saves lives,” and we definitely don’t intend on stopping soon.”
Firstport chief executive Josiah Lockhart said: “We are excited about Pounds for Purpose and the potential it has to empower young people to take action to test and start their idea, however big or small, to address the social or environmental issues that matters to them.
We are seeing more young people coming through our doors interested in setting up businesses that are driven by purpose, rather than the pursuit of profit alone. Pounds for Purpose gives us a platform to connect with young people who may not necessarily be ready to set up a social enterprise, but who are nevertheless interested in improving the world around them and are prepared to give their idea a go.”
Anyone interested in finding out more about Pounds for Purpose and applying can visit www.firstport.org.uk/poundsforpurpose . For more information about Real Talk, visit www.realtalkproject.org
Founding Editor of The Edinburgh Reporter.
Edinburgh-born multimedia journalist and iPhoneographer.
