"At the age of 23 I quit full time youth work. I was burnt out and decided to pursue my degree training and get a job in business. "During the previous three years, along with a team of volunteers, I'd had great fun working with young people. In the course of developing them to be leaders, my creative skills had blossomed and we'd taken the young people on various local, national and international peer leadership programmes. However, fun as it was, I had become frustrated with my team and peers because (I felt) they didn’t do things as well as me. Frustration caused me to think that I was the solution. A very arrogant position which caused me to burn out and eventually quit. "Eventually I got a job in South Kensington which required lots of commuter time. "My mentor bought me the book “Now, Discover Your Strengths” by Marcus Buckingham. As I read, I started to see that my peers were not, in fact ‘useless’ but that they had different strengths to me. I realised that while there were certain skills I was strong in, there were other skills my peers would be strong in. The way to get the best out of them would be to allow each to function in their area of strength.

We're excited to announce that FaithAction, our network of over 2,500 faith-based organisations in the UK, has once again secured funding from the Ministry of Housing, Community and Local Government to deliver the Creative English programme at 55 hubs across the country. Since 2013, over 10,000 learners have benefited from the Creative English approach to learning. After just 10 weeks, 100% of Creative English learners say that their confidence to speak increases, 78% become confident to use English in functional day-to-day situations, while 88% of learners who leave their home less than once a week at the start of the…

As we approach our 20 year anniversary next year, we are inspired to reflect on the legacy that we have left thus far and to think about our trajectory for the next 20 years. How will our actions of today result in a positive impact in the future? By the end of this year alone we will have brought over £2.3m into the voluntary sector in our area. Over the past 19 it's been an astounding £54.5m. We can confidently say that we are an established, mature VCSE organisation, proficient at delivering contracts and running a business.

The Mayor of London created the £45m Young Londoners Fund in July 2018, to help children and young adults make the most of our amazing capital. The fund is supporting 72 community projects across the city, to help young people at risk of getting swept up in crime to fulfil their potential. LifeLine Community Projects is receiving £147,000 over three years. Our Standing TALL project (Thriving, Aspiring, Learning, Leading) will engage 540 young people at-risk of exclusion and involvement in criminal activity, and walk with and support them towards improved wellbeing, resilience and meaningful opportunities at school and in the…

Back when we redesigned our website in 2016, we explored options for having a way for the public to donate to us online. There’s been a few changes since then, so we’ve updated our previous research, and expanded it to include a few more options! First, a little background: we’re a locally-focused charity, and while we don’t rely on donations to fulfill our vision, we DO use targeted fundraising campaigns from time to time. When researching, we originally focused on the three most popular options – JustGiving, Virgin Money Giving and BT’s MyDonate – but now we’ll also take a…