International Scholarships for Change

Dear supporter,

I am excited to announce the beginning of an exciting venture for this project.  

In the rural area of Arrochar, a small village outside Glasgow, Scotland, there is a youth group that works with teenagers 13-19 providing workshop based health related groups aimed at improving the social, emotional and physical wellbeing of teenagers particularly those who are deemed disadvantaged. This is funded by a joint enterprise with NHS Highlands and Argyll and Bute council.

In the course of this last year, this small group of teenagers have challenged social exclusion and discrimination in their community and have worked hard to fundraise to re-establish a youth club. They have carried out volunteering within their community and training in the areas of community development and youth work and have achieved a great deal in a short period of time. They mostly come from families that are poor and have been affected by alcoholism, drugs, sexual abuse, divorce, domestic violence, step families, bulling, death of a parent or poor health, some of them are carers for younger siblings. Together they have taken on and completed small projects that have allowed them to mature, develop confidence and grow stronger emotionally. They are typical teenagers keen to make a difference in spite of their own disadvantaged start.

Please see our link about a YOUTH live music event that the group set up. 

As such, this group of individuals are looking to fundraise to join a volunteer project in Kenya in 2014. These kids will benefit greatly from the experience offered by volunteering in Africa but they also have a lot to share too. It will be truly life changing for them. They will each have a unique personal journey through-out this process, be that in the challenge to fund raise to get there, getting physically fit to do the work, etc.  This fund provided by supporters such as you will be looking into assisting this group with the additional costs associated with travelling abroad, primarily flight costs. We do not want to interrupt their goals for fundraising for the full project cost as this is something that is personally very important to them.

We hope you are as excited by this prospect as we are. Whilst this is one small group, there are many similar groups out there that we hope we can help through this program. If you have any any questions, comments or ideas, please contact me at info@gvi.org.

Kind regards

Sophie Birkett

Charitable Trust Manager

Links:

• YOUTH live music
• GVI Charitable Trust website