Throughout all of our journalism projects with young people in London they gain the chance of achieving a Jack Petchey Award. These awards are based on young people setting themselves a goal and making a directed effort to achieve this goal. 

Setting goals both personally and within our skills base is something we continually encourage throughout our programmes from recognising a need for a confidence increase or to hone our photography skills. This means for us youth workers it can be difficult to choose between everyone working towards their goals!

In the last cohort of The Jack Petchey Foundation Awardees two young people stood out for most improved through our time together.

First of all is Ryan - we previously worked with Ryan during and following the first wave of the pandemic and he had set a couple of goals for himself. Two of the main goals were building on his photography skills and creating a portfolio for himself as well as concentration in lessons or workshops. Both of these areas of development has been Ryan's main focus since working with him again and he now has an amazing photography portfolio and is able to concentrate on his workload at a more focused rate than ever before. 

Our second awardee is Mohammed. His goal during our work together was on his confidence and want to be more willing to add to group discussions and share his ideas freely. By the end of our project Mohammed had interviewed all of his peers, produced an amazing film on young people's access to housing and built more confidence than any of us could have imagined. He is now someone who other young people gravitate towards and he is excited to add his ideas into the mix.

We're so proud of all the young people we work alongside and these awards are a way of recognising when young people have committed themselves to their goals and bringing other along with them.