I've added a new category, "Positive Youth Stories' and aim to flag up some of the great stuff young people are doing across the country
Young people prove they are worth listening to as they clock up nearly 28,000 hours as sports coaches in deprived areas with the street games project.
Details:
"A nationwide sports volunteering programme has helped over 1,200 young people from disadvantaged areas across the country, including 170 volunteers from London and the South East, to become sports volunteers, giving them access to sports coaching and community leadership skills.
The Co-operative StreetGames Young Volunteers, which currently has 1,206 volunteers aged from 16-25, have together clocked up nearly 28,000 hours working in the community to date - that's more than three years.
The news comes as two thirds of The Co-operative's customers and members, who voted in a recent poll, said that we should listen to young people more.
Peter Marks, Chief Executive of The Co-operative Group, said: "The Co-operative's work on community partnerships, such as our £1m Co-operative StreetGames Young Volunteers project, has shown us that when our young people are provided with supported opportunities they can be truly inspiring and it is clear that our customers and members believe in young people too.
"The sheer dedication of our young sports volunteers and the way they have grabbed this opportunity with both hands and are now inspiring other young people is truly outstanding and demonstrates precisely why we should listen to young people more and inspire them."
Over 50 per cent of the volunteers to join the scheme have gone on to obtain community leadership or sports coaching qualifications - boosting the national pool of coaching talent in the UK"
