Harold Hill Youth Action Group

Harold Hill, Essex

The Harold Hill Youth Action Group in Essex has helped give young people a voice within their community as well as proactively build community cohesion. The young people involved are engaging with issues that affect the local community and are helping support their own personal self development.

The group has been involved with projects such as cleaning up local woodland and planting trees, running youth conferences, offering fair-trade workshops, working with local politicians and recently organising a football match between the local youth and the local police force. This came about following a bid to improve relations and build up trust between the two sides following riots. Relationships between young people and the police are now at an all-time high and many of the young people are interested in joining the police force in the future.

“Since I joined the youth action group, I have gained confidence through public speaking and teamwork. It’s given me many opportunities to get involved with the community and made it possible for me to be a vice-chair for the Partnership Board of Harold Hill. Overall, it’s taught me to be more outgoing, gain valuable organisational and communication skills and I am now aware of how to make a difference in this world.” Eve