Budding young scribblers will soon get a chance to write their own story, thanks to an Big Lottery Fund award of £900,500 to Children’s Express for a project to help disadvantaged youngsters to learn communication and life skills.
The new project, ‘Learning Through Journalism’, will be offered to young people who are deaf, blind, or not in education, employment or training. The programme will enable youngsters to gain accreditation in communication, reporting and editing skills, create a finished piece of work for TV broadcast and produce a video or magazine for circulation among disadvantaged groups.
There will also be opportunities for young people to achieve accredited qualifications as peer mentors on Children’s Express programmes.
Fiona Wyton, Director of Children’s Express, said: “The Big Lottery grant will enable us to expand significantly across England and involve many more young people in our exciting media and participation programmes. We have over ten years experience of supporting young people to produce stories for publication and broadcast in the mainstream media and of bringing together young people from diverse backgrounds and experiences to raise their voices and have a say in their communities.
“We believe that our programmes should be available to a much larger group of children and young people, particularly those who are least likely to have a voice. This is the opportunity we have been working towards and we are delighted with the grant because it gives us such a strong platform to support our development plan over the next three years.”
Full Big Lottery Fund press release
For further information, please contact Fiona Wyton at Children's Express on 020 7833 2577.
