Keetch Celebrates Achievements of Young People at Special Awards Ceremony

12.27.00pm GMT Tue 22nd Jan 2008

Paul Keetch MP said, "It is inspiring to hear how these young people have made a difference in their local community. All young people with ideas about improving their local community should apply for an award through the Save the Children and British Gas Help Yourselves scheme. It's a great opportunity to make a difference."

Paul Keetch MP has also added his name to a parliamentary motion welcoming expressing concern about the plight of young people in deprived areas; welcoming the awards scheme and calling on the Government to do more to support young people living in deprived areas.

Save the Children and British Gas teamed up to create 'Help Yourselves' - a small grants scheme aimed at empowering and engaging children and young people who actively wanted to make a difference to their lives and the lives of their community. Help Yourselves was launched in 2005 and since then over 180 grants of £1,000 or £3,000 have been given to groups of vulnerable children and young people to do something proactive to make their lives and communities better.

'Help Yourselves' was created especially for young people. It provides the opportunities and advice they need to change and improve their quality of life by being actively involved in making changes to the communities in which they live.

Roxane Brown, Manager of Help Yourselves at Save the Children said, "Save the Children is very excited about celebrating the outstanding achievements of young people at this awards ceremony. We hope it will also encourage more people to get involved with the scheme as it goes from strength to strength in 2008. The Help Yourselves grants encourage children living in deprived areas to actively participate in making changes within their communities and to their lives. Save the Children particularly welcomes applications from groups who may face discrimination and disadvantage in society because of issues relating to, for example, geography, gender, ethnicity or disability. "

The awards ceremony also marks the start of the next stage of Help Yourselves - where bigger grants are going to be given out during 2008. The new phase will include 40 awards of £1000, 8 awards of £5000 and 3 awards of £10,000 - all of which will help children themselves set up lasting projects in their communities and really have a say in what goes on in their lives.