Young people

Are you aged 13 to 19 years? Do you and your friends have an idea for how to improve services for young people in Medway?

Then read on to find out more about how you can make that idea a reality.

Medway Council has been given two funds, worth £280,139, to give to the young people of Medway.

The funds, called the Youth Opportunity Fund (YOF) and the Youth Capital Fund (YCF), aim to give a voice to young people and help them influence what facilities are available for young people in Medway. This includes things to do, places to go and people to talk to.

If you are aged 13 to 19 years, you and your friends can apply for some of this money to fund something you want or would like to do in your area, including paying for adults to help you.

The two funds will be used for different projects. Read on for some more information on which fund is best for your idea.

Youth Capital Fund

This fund is just for capital items – those things you can hold, use and see.

To be successful in getting money from this fund, your idea should meet the following criteria:

• Whatever is bought must benefit more than one person. The more people that will benefit, the more likely you are to get an award.
• The item(s) must be legal, have the appropriate permission or consent and not cause a nuisance.

Examples of just a few of the things you could do include:

• helping to build or improve a skate park;
• equipping your youth centre with things like computers or redecorating it to make it more appealing to young people;
• helping to build a shelter in your local park;
• buying a mobile youth centre that could offer services to young people in rural areas.

Youth Opportunity Fund

This fund can be used for facilities, activities, events and campaigns that help young people aged 13 to 19 years to:

• be safe;
• be healthy;
• enjoy and achieve;
• make a positive contribution;
• achieve economic well-being.

The activities, events or campaigns should be related to a local need and must benefit more young people than you or your immediate group. In particular, this fund should try to help young people who are disadvantaged by prejudice, isolation, lack of access to facilities or personal challenges.

Examples of things you could do include:

• employing a specialist coach for your sports team;
• increasing the times your youth centre is open;
• starting a youth club;
• training to become an advisor, so you can talk to your friends and peers about things like health and staying safe.

The only limit to how you can spend the money to help young people in Medway is your imagination.

Select the link at the top of this page for information about the grant criteria for 2006/2008.

How to apply

If you wish to register an idea, download an application form (pdf 86KB). To use this file, you will need Adobe Acrobat Reader. If you do not have this on your computer, please use our advice page. Once you have completed the form, please send it to Children's Services at the address at the bottom of this page.

Applications must be received by 31 October 2008.

Once your ideas reach the council's Youth Panel, it will have a look through to find out if it can help you to try to get money from one of the funds. It will then contact you to invite you to give more details or to explain to you why your idea does not fit the criteria.

Some of the details the panel asks for on the form are to enable it to report to the government about what it is doing.

Approved bids

You can find out about the successful bids from last year by selecting the outcome of funding requests link at the top of this page.

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