Educational Arts Charity needs your help

Hundreds of young people from disadvantaged communities desperately need your help! Our dynamic, inspiring and creative projects help them to build skills, knowledge and confidence.

Sadly, many young people living in disadvantaged communities are facing an ever-increasing range of issues. The impact of Covid-19 and the increased isolation and interruption to education has been devastating for many. Mental health problems are soaring to unprecedented levels. The cost-of-living crisis has dramatically increased poverty amongst the most vulnerable and health-related issues are spiralling out of control. Sky high youth unemployment in London means many young people are disengaging from society and feel disillusioned about their futures. 

The consequences are more anti-social behaviour, knife and gang crime, bullying, social exclusion, substance misuse and so much more.

We are here to help.

Many of the young people we work with have extremely diverse needs. Most often they:

• Have behavioural, mental health and emotional issues.
• Are disengaging from education or have been excluded from mainstream school.
• Have low self confidence and self-esteem.
• Have special educational needs and struggle within a traditional classroom setting.

These young people are often on the verge of slipping through the cracks and we do everything we can to catch them before they fall. With 28 years of skills and experience under our belt we deliver innovative and engaging projects that inspire and empower young people to reach their full potential in life. 

As a charity, we’re totally reliant on funding to reach as many vulnerable young people as possible. We’re constantly applying to trusts and foundations, but competition for grants is high and money to help us fund our projects is becoming harder and harder to come by. 

This is where you come in.

As an organisation that has spent 28 years supporting our community we’ve decided to see if our community can help support us!

About us 

The award-winning Chain Reaction was set up by a passionate group of young women from East London 28 years ago. We devised a piece of theatre to stop young women from smoking and our energetic, hilarious and streetwise performance style got people thinking, laughing and learning.  Motivated and inspired by our experiences and the challenges people in the area faced, we continued to use theatre and the arts to ignite change. 

Today, our passion, energy and enthusiasm are still as strong as ever and we’ve now worked with a staggering 415,000 young people, enabling them to: 

• Develop essential life skills, motivation and aspirations.    
• Build confidence, self-esteem and resilience.
• Gain knowledge on health and social issues.
• Access high-quality arts and cultural opportunities (often for the first time). 

We’ve gained an outstanding reputation for using drama and media to deliver vibrant and innovative projects that respond directly to the current needs of 5-19 year olds in the most deprived communities of Essex and London. Our projects provide information, provoke debate, and break down taboos and myths around difficult topics.

We don’t shy away from difficult subjects; we tackle the most acute social problems including gangs, knife crime, mental health, radicalisation, teenage pregnancy, youth unemployment, social exclusion, bullying and drugs.

What we do

All our projects inspire and empower with a wholeheartedly positive message and a practical way of educating and improving society. Our transformational projects take place in schools, community venues, theatres and special education units (for those excluded from mainstream school). They include:

• Exciting issue-based workshop projects, including weekly user-led youth theatres and social action groups.
• Creative and effective employability programmes for those who’re either disengaging from school or already NEET (Not in Education, Employment & Training).
• Original, professional educational theatre performances fully supported by further resources (workshops/hot-seating/resource packs).

Some current programmes:

• Action4Gascoigne (A4G), our social-action project, tackles issues on one of the most deprived estates in the UK by facilitating young people to plan and deliver creative community events and campaigns to improve their local area.  
• Chain Reaction Youth Theatre (CRYT), our weekly issue-based drama project raises aspirations, confidence and communication skills amongst marginalised young people. 
• Our Girls Support Girls school-based drama project educates vulnerable young women who are disengaging from school by raising their self-esteem, aspirations and employability skills and 
• Our Focus Pocus projects goes into centres and works with those young people who have been excluded from mainstream primary school due to emotional and behavioural problems.

Summary

At a time when society is increasingly disrupted and the problems caused by misinformation, misunderstanding and lack of education are being felt in so many communities, Chain Reaction are a beacon of light, clearly communicating important messages that have a positive effect on children, young people and society in an entertaining, engaging, personal and most importantly memorable way.

These young people desperately need positive engagement and we’re here to provide that. 

What we need funding for

We’re aiming to raise £10,000. With this funding we will achieve the below outcomes;  

• We will engage 500 disadvantaged 5-19-year olds with positive creative projects. 
• We’ll deliver 4 creative educational programmes. 
• 80% of young people will improve their knowledge of health and social issues.   
• 80% of young people will increase their skills.   
• 60% of young people engaged in workshop programmes will have greater confidence.    

How can you help?

Donate - However much or little you’re able to give, your support will help us support young people in disadvantaged communities.

Share - Help spread the word and encourage others to donate as well! 

Get in touch - If you think you may have a reward that we could add to our project to encourage donations, please get in touch at [email protected]

Thank you, thank you, thank you!

Your support really will help to change lives.

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