Young at Heart: London Youth

16 December, 2021

At first glance, comparing the years 2021 to 1887 seems nonsensical, but the work of charity London Youth will certainly make you do a double take.

“What strikes me is some of the themes stay the same through time,” says the charity’s CEO, Rosemary Watt-Wyness. “In 1887 [when the charity was first launched], one of the things they really majored on was sports activity for young people, and today we still do a lot of sport activities.

We do a lot around young people’s employability, and you can look back to 1887 and say it mattered then and it matters now.” For over 130 years, then, the work of London Youth has been crucial in giving opportunities to the capital’s younger generation. Their amazing youth workers offer advice and support across a host of disciplines, and they highlight how community youth centres are a vital lifeline to many young Londoners – and this was before a pandemic brought the world to a shuddering halt.

“Mental health was an issue we were conscious of pre-pandemic,” Watt-Wyness says. “Now, a lot more young people are experiencing anxiety-related issues. We can see that increasing the amount of mental health support we put out there through our network is going to be a big focus for us over the next few years. Employability, too: we have a programme called ‘Future Talent’ that we deliver in youth clubs, where we help young people to develop their soft skills.”

It’s where a company like KFH plays such a crucial role in supporting London Youth. Earlier this year, Jasmin Athwal (Director of Talent and Development), Sophie Danes (Head of Lettings Management), Tom Bryant (Head of Technology) and Sarah Clegg (Talent Development Associate) took part in a careers insight discussion with young people from a London Youth member club, and it was so successful that they were dubbed ‘the KFH fantastic four’.

“KFH really care about the communities and local areas they are working in, and youth clubs are right at the heart of local communities,” Watt-Wyness explains the importance of KFH’s support.

“That gave us a really strong foundation for a partnership and I can’t overstate how important it is.” Watt-Wyness says this is one of the reasons why she is optimistic about what the future holds, even if she is realistic about the challenges ahead. “Since 1887 there have only been a couple of moments in history like we are going through now. One was probably after WWII, and the other is now. Whatever we thought we were achieving before, we have got to do so much more.”

A snapshot of how the KFH family are raising a minimum of £100 each to support London Youth.

• Ronnke May (Sales Branch Director Catford) set herself a challenge of walking 300km and raised a whopping £2,544!
  
  
• Duncan Blakelock (Central Lettings Director) completed the 160km cycle along the South Downs Way and raised over £1,200.
  
  
• On Thursday 24 June, several members of the block management team completed the Chase the Sun 10k for KFH100, raising over £800.
  
  
• Danica MacNab (Senior Lettings Negotiator Muswell Hill) raised £1,205 by setting herself a personal challenge of walking 60m underwater in one single breath.
  
  
• Julian Peak (Sales Director South East London) did not let a full hip replacement stop him from raising money. He set himself a target of doing 30,000 steps (without crutches) on 22 July, which was exactly one month after his operation. So far, Julian has raised £2,100.
  
  
• Lisa Cleasby (Head of Renewals and Change of Sharers) swam five miles – or 320 lengths of a swimming pool – and has raised £210.