Last night, we hosted our annual Fundraising Dinner, raising a brilliant £40K (and counting!) to fund our transformational conflict navigation programmes for young people.
It was an inspiring evening, we heard from our trainers Amyn, Dionne, Ahmed, and Natasha about their journeys through Leap – from young graduate to trainer. They spoke of the amazing impact that Leap has had on their lives; helping them to define and achieve their goals and step into leadership roles to support other young people.
The theme this year was ‘Leaders For Our Tomorrow’, showcasing how Leap’s programmes can help young people to build leadership skills and become positive role models for themselves, their peers and their communities.
For the first time ever, we brought the power of Leap’s conflict navigation training to the room. We believe that experiencing a snippet of Leap’s programmes is the best way to understand the impact for the young people we support, and hope that this helped us reach our ambitious fundraising target for the evening.
We also heard from our CEO, Gabin Sinclair-Constance about his personal motivation to work for Leap:
“OVER THE YEARS, I HAVE SPOKEN TO COUNTLESS WORRIED MOTHERS, GRANDPARENTS, CARERS, COMMUNITY LEADERS, TEACHERS, WHO HAVE ALL TOLD ME THAT THEY ARE WORRIED ABOUT THE YOUNG PEOPLE IN THEIR CARE.”
“I’VE ALSO WITNESSED IN MY TIME AT LEAP THE LIFE CHANGING IMPACT THAT OUR CONFLICT NAVIGATION PROGRAMMES CAN HAVE ON YOUNG PEOPLE – TO HELP THEM DEAL WITH CHALLENGES IN A CONSTRUCTIVE WAY, BUILD HEALTHY RELATIONSHIPS WITH OTHERS AND ULTIMATELY MAKE BETTER DECISIONS ABOUT THEIR LIVES. IT’S BEEN A PRIVILEGE TO SEE THIS IMPACT THROUGH OUR WORK.”
Gabin spoke of the increased demand for our work – referrals from schools are at an all-time high. Against the backdrop of economic, political and social turmoil, our young people need support more than ever before. They need Leap’s work to help rebuild their hopes for the future.
The generous donations from the Fundraising Dinner will enable us to meet this demand for our services, responding to the current needs of young people. We can continue our work in schools to reduce exclusions, pilot a new masculinity programme aimed at combatting violence against women and girls, and deliver a new social media curriculum to help young people to stay safe online.
We value you as partners in our mission to give young people and the adults in their lives the skills to navigate conflict effectively. If you would like to fund our life-changing programmes, please click here.
