Nonprofit

The Challenge Network

London, LBH, United Kingdom | www.the-challenge.org

About Us

The Challenge brings young people together from diverse backgrounds and throws them in at the deep end. They take on physical, social and civic challenges that prepare them to design and deliver a project that will make a difference in their community. Along the way they learn key skills such as teamwork, leadership and communication, and are encouraged to develop trust in others, responsibility for themselves, understanding and empathy.

Who we are:

The Challenge Network is the charity that designs and delivers ‘The Challenge’, inspiring young people from diverse backgrounds to come together after writing their GCSEs and make their mark in the community. The Challenge Network is a registered charity established in April 2009, with offices in London, Birmingham and Bolton. 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 their contemporaries in 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 a broad group of young people.

Our aims:

Help 15-16 year olds understand the responsibilities of adulthood, bring them together with people of different social backgrounds and motivate them to get involved in their local communities, thereby strengthening them.

Our approach:

The way we achieve our aims is by providing intense, challenging experiences, reflection and high quality, consistent mentoring relationships.

Results to date:

<code>M PH A SIS O N SO C IA L MI X I N G<br /><br />We aim to work with every secondary, PRU and SEN school in each area in<br /><br />which we operate and in 2012 we will work with c1000 schools. The young<br /><br />people on our programme therefore represent a broad demographic mix:<br /><br />• 55% girls, 45% boys<br /><br />• 51% non-white, 41% non-Christian<br /><br />• 17% are on free school meals (population average 16%)<br /><br />• 2% are looked after children (in care) (population average 1%)<br /><br />• 65% have no previous volunteering experience (in line with population average)<br /><br />• 8% went to private or independent school (population average 7%)<br /><br />• 1% went to PRU/SEN school (population average 1%)<br /><br />• 4% have a disability<br /><br />HIGH RETENTION<br /><br />• 100% of our young people complete the rst part (Personal Challenge)<br /><br />• 99% complete the second part (Team Challenge)<br /><br />• 96% complete the third part (Real Challenge Design)<br /><br />• 85% graduated from the entire Challenge programme<br /><br />H IGH LY RATE D BY YO U N G P EO P LE<br /><br />Every young person who takes part in The Challenge rates each section<br /><br />of the four part programme:<br /><br />• Average score of 9.0 / 10: Part I (Personal Challenge) & Part II (Team Challenge)<br /><br />• Average score of 8.0 / 10: Part III (Real Challenge Design) & Part IV<br /><br />(Real Challenge Action)<br /><br />L A STIN G IM PA C T O N YO U N G P EO P LE<br /><br />We measure the young people’s self-reported levels of trust, responsibility<br /><br />and understanding of others before and after the programme. After the<br /><br />summer programme, young people report:<br /><br />• “I am more confident.” 96% Agree<br /><br />• “I’m better at getting on with new people.” 94% Agree<br /><br />• “I’m more able to trust people.” 87% Agree<br /><br />• “I’m better at understanding people.” 94% Agree</code>

programme.

2012 plans:

Deliver programmes for c10,000 young people from London, the Midlands and the North West, establishing three regional hubs. Our key focus is on enhancing programme quality (more challenge, more service opportunities, even more varied social mix) whilst learning how to scale and preparing to franchise. Our plan is to scale to provide programme places for tens of thousands of young people per year by 2015.

Partners:

The Challenge Network partners with a wide variety of organizations to deliver our programmes including Envision, Outward Bound Trust, BBC, The Scouts and London Youth.

The Challenge brings young people together from diverse backgrounds and throws them in at the deep end. They take on physical, social and civic challenges that prepare them to design and deliver a project that will make a difference in their…

Issue Areas Include

Location

  • 75 Westminster Bridge Road, London, LBH SE1 7HS, United Kingdom
    London
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