Co-op Local Community Fund has provided £3,670 of match funding
32nd St Matthews Girlguiding
Northampton, Northamptonshire, United Kingdom
Aim
We would like to reach more girls to provide the Girlguiding experience to girls living in deprived areas and with additional needs.
About us
We're a group that wants to help educate girls, aged between 4 to 16 years old and create a safe space for them to be themselves and have fun. We teach the girls basic day-to-day life skills, such as cooking, budgeting and building resilience. We give the girls the opportunity of international experiences, something they would otherwise not get the chance to do.
How we help.
Our Girlguiding group meets in a recorded area of high deprivation in Northampton. We use funds raised to provide resources such as books, equipment and once in a life time UK based and international trips.
Many of the girls we help would not be able to experience what we provide as their families cannot normally afford extras or luxuries such as these. Also this year to help the girls and families we are providing a weekly hot snack such as samosas, sausage rolls, pizza, toast, etc. To ensure that our girls have had something hot to eat in the evening as some families may now struggle with this in the cost of living crisis.
We also have a number of girls who suffer from mental health conditions or who have additional needs, who we adapt our programmes and meetings for. We have run remote Girlguiding to some girls who suffer with mental health issues such as anxiety who don't feel able to meet with us in person. We provide packs and resources to home for these girls to still take part and learn the same skills as those who meet in person.
By meeting once a week, we bring the girls and their families together and offer different support networks. It is now recorded that girls who attend Girlguiding units suffer less, especially in their teens and early adulthood, with mental health issues. By being a member, girls have access to a wide variety of support.
What our fundraising goes towards.
We are voluntary group, run by a team of volunteers. We use all money raised to subsidise and pay for trips. In recent years we have organised and fundraised for trips to Legoland, the Pantomime, Zoos and international trips to Switzerland.
We also use funds to provide books and equipment and subsidise annual membership fees so girls can become and continue to be active members of Girlguiding.
Funds raised also go towards providing packs and equipment to those girls who cannot join us in person but still want to be active members of Girlguiding.
This project successfully funded on 1st January 2023