Charitable Support

RedFin supports two worthwhile charities:

Friends of Aschiana who provides food, education and fun to some of the 50,000 street children in Kabul, Afghanistan.

Hackney Quest who provides fantastic activities and future opportunities to young people in Hackney.

Please have a look on their websites at the great work that both these charities do, your help will be much appreciated:

www.friendsofaschiana.org.uk
www.hackneyquest.org.uk

Overview of Hackney Quest

Hackney Quest (a registered charity) has been working with young people aged 9-18, living in Hackney, who are potentially at risk through social, economic and educational disadvantage, since 1988.

Our aim is to provide stimulating, educational and diversional activities that encourage young people to find support systems, make new friends and have a sense of social responsibility. The long-term aim is to divert young people and keep them happily occupied and off the streets before they find themselves involved in street crime and anti-social activities.

We provide a range of activities and opportunities aimed at promoting team building, individual responsibility and knowledge about the environment in which they live. These range from sports activities, involvement in local environmental projects, arts and crafts, cultural and educational – including drug awareness and anti-bullying workshops plus much more.

We have recently been awarded a contract by The Learning Trust to provide the two exclusions projects. These projects are funded up until July 2008, however, this work is going to continue indefinitely as we have become one of their Service Providers under the New Visions Pupil Referral Unit.

We are also an approved supplier for Hackney Youth Service to provide PAYP activity programmes and they have confirmed that we will receive funding for the next 3 holiday periods and that it is very likely that the funding will continue for 2 years after 2008.

As can be seen from above, we have years of experience of managing large projects within Hackney Quest. We are now in the third year of providing services to The Learning Trust for young people excluded from school and we are in the 5th year of receiving PAYP funding from Hackney Youth Service.

On behalf of the Race Equality Unit, we are also working in partnership with the Dalston Youth Project to provide a series of Strengthening Families, Strengthening Communities parenting workshops which aim to help families develop: strong ethnic and cultural roots; positive parent-child relationships; a range of life skills; self esteem, self discipline and social competence; and an ability to access community resources. We will achieve these aims through a range of methods which include:

• Providing parents with information to empower them.
• Developing anger management and positive discipline techniques.
• Providing a cultural framework to validate the historical and family experiences of different ethnic groups.
• Decreasing isolation by helping parents to connect to community resources.

In addition to the above, in consultation with our local community we raised REAP funding for the re-development of our local community playground.

The young people are encouraged to join our Youth Council and become involved in planning, organising and raising funds for various activities. They have recently, successfully submitted proposals to arrange a youth exchange visit to Northern Ireland, for which they raised £3,500. They are currently planning a presentation evening to report back to other questors the outcome of the trip. Once they reach 16 they are invited to become co-volunteers to assist our more experienced volunteers on activities, thereby becoming role models to their peers, they also work towards a Millennium Volunteer Award.

At present we serve 130 children and young people on our programmes, which are held during school holidays, evenings during term time and at weekends. However, the demand is always greater than we are able to fulfil and we are currently working towards increasing the number of young people we can help each year.

Our members are referred to us via Education Authorities, the Police Youth Offending Team, Social Services and, increasingly, introduced by their parents. Some join us by simply walking into our office and asking for help. Regardless of how they join us, Hackney Quest seeks to divert them from crime and anti-social behaviour by keeping them engaged and off the streets and helping them to achieve their full potential by supporting them, opening up new opportunities and reinforcing positive values in a disciplined, safe and friendly environment.

Ultimately, out programme is designed not only to interest and excite our existing members but also to attract new members from the length and breadth of Hackney and provide stimulation for the volunteers as well as the young people.