Who are we?
theGKexperience is a Youth Work Charity founded on the belief that all young people are brilliant but recognise that not all young people have opportunities to succeed. Our team of Youth Workers and Young Leaders work together to support young people facing challenges in their every day lives on a long term basis.
We work alongside young people and their families living in the 10% most disadvantaged communities in Scotland. We focus our work on young people living in the 5% most deprived neighbourhoods (Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation). Our work spans 4 key areas and across all areas our team strives to increase confidence, resilience, self-esteem, well-being, leadership and self-efficacy among our young people.
What we do...
Residential
Our residential programme models community living whilst developing positive, respectful relationships and uses the arts, sport and cookery; develops life skills and issue based working, as well as exciting outdoor activities.
Our residential experiences give young people opportunities to explore contexts outside often extremely challenging situations which can dominate their home and community environment; build new and positive relationships; learn together in a supported setting; and cook, eat and share good food. The residential programme gives young people the chance to explore new opportunities out-with their comfort zones in a safe environment, whilst building and maintaining positive relationships with their peers. Our work promotes young people mixing from across communities to encourage them to overcome their differences. The positive impact a residential experience has on their confidence levels, leadership skills and the forming of relationships is incredible. These new found skills are then used and applied in their home and community.
As an insight to what the money we raise will be going towards:
£20 pays for travel for one young person.
£50 would allow us to purchase waterproofs for a young person to use for a residential and beyond.
£350 for one young person to attend a residential.
£750 pays for food on one residential.
£1,600 is the cost for activities for 2 residential trips.
Funding our residential programme is always a huge challenge but particularly this year as theGKexperience enters a new phase where development of our structures is necessary to ensure our sustainability, alongside a challenging funding environment. Therefore we are asking those who are either inspired by the work of theGKexperience or who already know, love and value our work, to get behind our crowdfunding.
Beyond our work on residential, theGKexperience supports these other areas...
Local Work
Our desire to build positive, sustainable relationships with young people on their terms means being involved in their communities offering partnership with existing local projects, furthering young peoples growth and development.
The Young Team
We have a strong belief that young people from Scotland's most disadvantaged communities have skills and qualities exclusive only to them. The Young Team is a Young Leaders programme where young people are identified and invited to be a part of an intensive period of training and self-development, whilst learning alongside others more experienced and re-employing their new found skills and confidence back into local community settings.
The Container
This is an area of work where we recognise young people that are in need of additional support above and beyond our other areas of work. This additional support depends on the needs of an individual at that time, this can include mentoring, regular home visits, support for parent/carer, being a supportive presence at multi agency meetings and liaising with school management.
Want to know more?
If you wish to see more from our young people and the work that we do you can take a look at our website, theGKexperience, follow us on Instagram and Twitter, and read our young people and young leaders stories publication 'I Wasnae Expectin' That'.
If you have any questions don't hesitate to contact us, we'd love to hear from you!