About us
The Challenge is a civic service programme like no other. We take young people from diverse backgrounds and throw them in at the deep end. They take on teamwork and leadership challenges that prepare them to design and deliver a project of their own that will bring their community together.
Who we are:
The Challenge Network is the charity that designs and delivers ‘The Challenge’, inspiring young people from diverse backgrounds to come together and serve their community. The Challenge Network is a registered charity established in April 2009, with offices in South London and Birmingham. The charity is funded by a variety of private philanthropists, trusts and foundations.
Our challenge:
Our young people are struggling to come of age; they have lower levels of confidence and trust, weaker relationships and a lower sense of belonging than almost all other developed countries.* The consequences on UK society can be seen in impacts on the economy, community participation, health and crime levels. There are few scalable programmes that tackle these issues by attracting and serving the mass of young people.
Our aims:
Help 16-17 year olds understand the responsibilities of adulthood, bring them together with people of different social backgrounds and motivate them to get involved in serving local communities.
Our approach:
The way we achieve our aims is by providing intense, challenging experiences, structured reflection and high quality mentoring relationships.
2009 results:
158 young people from Southwark and North Hammersmith took up The Challenge, with c. 95% completion of the summer programme and 100% of teams completing their Real Challenge project. The social mix was broadly representative of the local population. Evaluation suggested significant increases in participants’ sense of belonging (+60%), confidence (+50%) and trust (+37%).
2010 plans:
Deliver programmes for up to 1000 young people from London and Birmingham, establishing two regional hubs. Our key focus is on enhancing programme quality (more challenge, more service opportunities, more varied social mix) whilst learning how to scale and preparing to franchise. Our plan is to scale to c. 5,000 young people per annum in 2011 and 50,000 per annum by 2015.
Partners:
The Challenge Network partners with a wide variety of organizations to deliver our programmes including Envision, Outward Bound Trust, BBC, The Prince’s Trust and London Youth. See more of our partners.
