The Marlborough Area Board has given approval to four grants for Local Youth Network Funding. They were introduced to the meeting by Helen Bradley – the Wiltshire Council Locality Youth Facilitator for the area.
Two grants go to the recently re-formed Savernake Explorer Scouts who are starting out with a new team of volunteer Scout leaders but with very limited resources. They get £3,457 for camping equipment.
This Scout group also get £1,000 for four of their members who are joining a large party of adults and young people going to Tanzania to work on community building projects. The four will have to raise £14,000 between them for their fares and living expenses.
The Board said this grant should be used to enable the four scouts to give before and after talks and presentations to inspire other young people in the area to join similar projects.
There are more details of this project in this Marlborough.News report.
The applicant Innov8Sportz CiC will get £3,449 towards sport leader courses for young people and coaches in the area. One of the young members told the meeting: “Young people in our area are not getting the sport they need” – and this is partly due to a lack of trained leaders.
Finally, St John’s Academy will get £3,500 (£500 less than they asked for) to run a pilot programme of weekly Mindfulness sessions for students who are reporting high levels of anxiety and panic attacks. Such conditions do not reach the threshold for treatment under the NHS Children and Young Adults Mental Health Services (CAMHS.)
£3,000 will go towards the cost of the sessions and £500 to mount a proper evaluation of the pilot programme.
The Marlborough Area Board was attended by only two of its four Wiltshire Council members, was not quorate and so could not vote on these grants. A special extra meeting of the Board will be held at 10.00am in the Town Hall on January 31 to confirm these grants. This meeting will be open to the public.