The Youth Impact Fund is a unique initiative that puts funding directly in the hands of young people under the age of 18 to create real, positive change in their community.  This programme will provide grants for youth- led projects, supporting innovative ideas to make a difference.

Young people will have the opportunity to design and lead their own projects – whether it’s creating a community garden, organising a youth led event, painting a mural, or running a mental Health awareness campaign. These projects will be selected by young people, for young people, ensuring their voices are heard

The programme will be managed by a Youth Council, who will review applications, decide on funding and oversee the impact of the projects.  We believe this initiative will empower youth with leadership skills, encourage community involvement, and bring creative, new ideas to life.

By supporting this project, you’re investing in the next generation of changemakers, helping them take ownership of their community and build a better future – one small grant at a time!

Following the outcome of a recent survey from members of Torry community we would like to run a project based on the requests of members of the community. They have expressed their wish to have a type of recreational club.

This project aims to engage people with weekly activities that will help their mental resilience, health and wellbeing, support them in building healthy relationship among members of the community, build community spirit, social interactions/connections. This club will also improve the self-awareness of beneficiaries and enhance their self-esteem. This club will offer activities like fitness classes, games sessions, outdoor walk sessions, knitting and dance sessions.

We have a programme of three levels. All the schools start with the first level where we cover the essential and basics of firstaid. We start with how to keep themselves safe, why we do first aid, calling for help, talking about how we can be the ones tohelp friends and family. Not only with people that we know but this can also be used in the wider community. We also coverasthma, choking, DRAB and recovery position. We have discussion, the children do group work, fill in booklets they can keepand hands on practice of DRAB and recovery position.

We are applying for funding to expand our free soup and sandwich club from once per month to two times per month. The overall aim of the soup and sandwich club is to reduce social isolation, improve mental health, and to reduce food poverty which are key issues in our locality. The project will run on a Thursday between 11:00 – 13:00 whereby local people can come along to their community centre and enjoy a light lunch of free soup and sandwiches. This project will reduce the barriers tolocal people having access to a free nutritious meal whilst developing stronger ties to their local area. This project will also help towards the important goal of reducing the impact of the cost-of-living crisis by ensuring people do not go hungry.

The unification of Ukrainians into a musical U-Band.  The goal of our community is to organise and conduct performances for Ukrainians and all residents of Aberdeen.  We want to introduce the local population to Ukrainian clulture through song.  We want to share our culture and bring people together.

Our project is to provide a variety of excersise classes for recovering addicts to encourage them to get out and about, socilaise and excersise to help them stay focusedon their positive road and destination of recovery.  Our building has a larghe hall that we can provide the space for excersise sessions.  We have equupment already within our ventre that can be used, but ther might be some small additional equipment required to purchase depending on the sport/activity being facilitated.  We have a cafe/canteen area for people to meet for a social after their session so they can have refreshements and enjoy the company of each other to continue to support one another on their recovery journey.  We curently have a group using our centre to support the recovering addicts (Narcotics Anonymous).  They use the small hall for their group as a community space to provide this service.  The lead of this group will be supporting this project to invite members of Narcotics Anonymous along to these sessions,he iwll also be able to advertise this within the Narcotics Anonymous website so the wider community members can come along and be included also.

To cover the costs of providing Christmas lights on the lamposts of Provost Watt Drive in Kincorth and to purchase beverages/snacks for our residents in the community to attend an event at Christmas to celebrate the switch-on of the lights. Over the years the Kincorth & Leggart Community Council have purchased Christmas Lights and now own a total of 18 individual lights. We would like to purchase a further 3 lights. The cost of one light is £195 and each lamppost must have a 16-amp socket installed on the lamppost to support the light at a cost of £85. We commission Scotia Animation Ltd to look after the lights on our behalf. This covers storage, maintenance, repair and erection of the lights at Christmas. Scotia also help KLCC with the submission of documentation to ACC for approval to instal the lights. The annual Invoice from Scotia for their services is approximately £1,500 depending on repairs etc. We spent £132 on beverages/snacks for the Christmas event which was held on 2nd December 2024 to celebrate last year’s lights switch-on. This event really brings the community together.  Including isolated people from all backgrounds

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Family Learning and Sport Aberdeen, using Cummings Park Centre plan to deliver wellbeing physical activities and arts/crafts wellbeing sessions and offer wellbeing sessions aimed directly at those who currently experience mental health symptoms, or are felt from time to time, or from those in the process of recovery.

For this, EFT Natural Healing Therapy sessions would be purchased from a local community business which would not only provide the skills necessary to reduce stress, low mood and anxiety but help assist develop a local small business

The families targeted and expected to attended have many wellbeing needs and the activities provided are designed to combat many of these by ensuring all abilities can participate, sessions/activities are good fun, everything is easy for beginners, there is a role for everyone, provides the ability to improve confidence and improves social skills for families, adults and children alike.

We want to provide the opportunity for high quality, accredited bike maintenance training through the delivery of the nationally recognised Velotech Bronze award.

Velotech are the UK industry leader in mechanical cycle maintenance training and we would like to be able to deliver the nationally recognised Bronze level award to young people living in Northfield. This training will present an opportunity to gain a vocational qualification and increase employability as well as empowering participants to not only fix and maintain their own bikes but to also offer that service to others as a qualified person.

This funding will allow for up to 20 people to take part in the 2 day course which can be delivered in the community by qualified Adventure Aberdeen staff.

This is an excellent opportunity for young people interested in developing their skills in basic mechanics or interested in career pathways in this area

Empowher is a peer-to-peer mental health support group for women in Aberdeen. Setup in Nov. 2024 the group meets on a fortnightly basis for 1 hour & provides a safe space for women to have open & honest discussions around mental health, with a focus on suicide prevention. The idea came from the founders' lived experience, recognition in the success of groups such as Andy’s Man Club & Man chat, and identification of a lack of similar help for women.  The venue is a cosy room in Hilton Community Centre, which has been popular, and has been free while the group has been set up. The Centre is very near Woodside and at least two regular participants are from Woodside. The project aims to help women help each other with improvement of their mental wellbeing. About 8 people have come along to each session with varying degrees of mental health issues, some with Autism or ADHD & is inclusive to anyone struggling or feeling alone. The budget includes venue hire for the fortnightly meetings for a year, as well as separate professional art therapy for people who would like to try this. The group will also aim to find free, in-kind advice from specialist organizations, to learn more about keeping the group going safely.