Small grants up to £1500 are available from PAVO to run projects that provide volunteering opportunities for young people aged 14-25 years.
18 month project are subject to 2024/25 funding
Youth volunteering activities including; illuminated tractor run, creation of a sleigh for Santa to visit local children, flower and song afternoon tea delivered in the local village hall and a volunteer led community fun day.
18 month project with a focus on a Christmas event and Summer event the following year
We would like to hold an event at our local village hall to bring the community together. This would include the preparation of the venue, making the outside look clean and tidy as well as the inside of the hall and making any repairs that are necessary to ensure the hall can be fully used. This would also then benefit the community for other events they wish to hold here in the future. The hall is a hub in our community, where many people come to meet so these repairs would fully benefit all of the local community.
We want to hold an event in the local village hall, something for all ages of the community to come to and enjoy. We will use this opportunity to raise money for a local charity as well as our own young farmers club to allow the members to try a variety of new skills and really build on their confidence
6 month project - event to support a local community hall with celebration event involving the community as a one off event.
We’ll produce and generate material for a podcast that explores the young people’s experiences and passions whilst living in the Dyfi Valley.
The podcast will be created and led by the input of the young people themselves, who will have the opportunity to be involved in the project in a variety of ways. From behind the scenes production work, to writing scripts and creative material, to presenters and interviewers, to taking the starring role as the subject for articles and life experience pieces.
This will enable the young people to explore their creativity, gain valuable experience and learn new skills in the art of digital broadcast production. It will also create a finished work of broadcast media of which will allow the young people to express themselves and raise issues in their own voices, therefore increasing their sense that their voices are important and that they are valuable members of our community.
6 month project – The project plans to work with another organisation for longer term sustainability and support for young people volunteering.
The money will be used to purchase vital equipment to improve the quality of our projects so that they can be seen by wider audiences across Powys and Wales. By owning our own equipment, we can include more young people in the collective as we will be able to work on films far more frequently and run more workshops. Our group is focused on enabling volunteers 18+ to participate but will also work with volunteers under 18. Despite the presence of high quality low cost digital cameras, the rest of filmmaking equipment is still very expensive and because of how rural we are the nearest rental places are far away, therefore by operating as a collective we can pool resources together and share equipment making filmmaking accessible to young people in this area of Wales.
As the equipment will be funded the group plan to continue to deliver this project at their own expense after the 18 month project
There are a number of strands to our project.
Fundraising event for charity that supports people with Gastroparesis, one of our members suffers from this condition. We will hold a race night to raise funds.
We hold a Christmas Tractor run around local villages, we finish in Ystradfellte where we sing carols in the square and welcome all of the people who have supported us over the year. Members organise refreshments and are on hand to meet and greet everyone. In order to make this event more inclusive we have offered places in tractors and on minibuses for more people to take part in this event. This year we would like to hire more buses to allow more older members of the community to take part.
Our membership has increased with more members coming from deprived areas of our communities. Part of being in a club is having a “kit”, we know that some families cannot afford this which is why we have not changed it for several years. We now need to update it and would like to be able to subsidise it as needed so that no one feels left out or excluded.
We also want to go to a theatre show, several members have never been in a theatre. Again we want to be inclusive and tickets are expensive. We would like to subsidise tickets for all members so everyone as equal opportunity and access to fun as highlighted in the Future Generations act.
Set events planned during the next six months
We would like the money to use towards furthering our Youth Café project based in Newtown. The Youth Café is a project that all of us on the Junior Start Well are very passionate about. It was created to be a safe space where young people can go for free drinks and low cost food to just sit and talk to friends or use as a quiet space for homework or revision if nowhere is suitable at home., myself and Gemma had this idea as two Young Carers who didn’t feel we had a safe space like this and thought with help from the Junior Start Well Board could create one. It then evolved with our interests to include board games, and sports activities to help young people with activities they want and need with help from surveys during sessions. Our aim with this project is to create a place for young people to go and socialise as well as seek support if needed. We have addressed many challenges for young people in this café such as the cost of living crisis by providing free drink and a place to charge phones as well as hoping to provide laptops and homework equipment. We also are hoping to create links with local services to provide a relaxing atmosphere for young people to access services such as ones for young carers, counselling, or other mental health services. Also, we felt after covid young people missed out on making new friends in different schools, clubs etc so we feel this café also facilitates a place for that as well.
18 month project
