A youth club manager who benefited herself from youth services as a child hopes to raise millions of pounds to sustain them in Bristol.
Charmaine Lawrence believes that through her innovative campaign, entitled ‘333’, she will be able to fill an funding shortfall by raising £3 million in three years. She claims that Bristol’s youth services have faced accumulative cuts totalling almost £3 million and could be cut even further.
The 38-year-old, who grew up in St Pauls, attended Full Circle youth club as a child before she began working there in 2012. Now that she is the Youth Development Manager at the youth charity, based at Docklands Community Centre, her focus is to sustain the youth services across Bristol currently that are under threat.
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She believes the solution can be found from Bristol’s business community. Her mission is to find 300 businesses across Bristol to commit to donating a total of £9,900 each, over the next three years.
She said the campaign is called 333 because each 3 stands for a different component of how the £3 million will be raised. The first three symbolise the 300 businesses who will participate, the second being the £3 million target and the third representing the fact that the project will run for three years.
Charmaine feels with her creative background, business experience and years of working in the youth sector, her campaign can provide a viable solution to the latest cuts in youth services: “We are in the very early stages of the campaign and it’s something that I feel if it’s done right, it will be around for a very long time. We do have a lot of businesses interested in supporting it and I feel in the next six months we will see it build momentum and see the positive effects of such a campaign for the youth sector in Bristol.”
Charmaine is no stranger to creating solutions to problems she sees around her - she said it has been a continuous pattern in her life. In 2014 she had entrepreneurial ambitions in the form of creating an all natural skin care business but after discovering the existing networking events were membership fees of up to £500 a year.
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As a response she was inspired to create her own networking events for women from diverse backgrounds called The Queens Power Lunch. What started as a group of around 10 women from St Pauls, who were all interested in starting their own business, grew into mixed networking events attended by people across the South West.
This led to her creating the Mogul Minded Group and creating her own award ceremonies and magazine. She said for her it was important to channel her disappointment into something positive. The magazine she created came out of the frustration from a lack of mainstream media coverage of the individuals and businesses she celebrated at her Mogul Award Ceremonies.
Reflecting on why she felt those stories were not being covered, she said: “Unfortunately for me, my story’s not sensational enough. I wasn’t a drug dealer who is now doing something good, I’m not a stripper, now giving back to the community, I’ve always been on the same path that I’m on, I’ve always tried to do my best, I’ve always given to the community, I’ve always tried to create platforms that celebrate other people and the good work they are doing. You’ll see a pattern here with my life that I’ve always tried to be the change I wish to see.”
Over three years the plan is to distribute the funds across 70 or more youth organisations across Bristol. Unlike most funding pots that require lengthy applications, the only conditions attached to this funding is that the money be spent on service delivery and that young people have a say on how the money is spent.
Once the money has been raised the all-female governance team will decide which organisations will receive funding and how much they will each get. The governance team is made up of Creative Youth Network engagement worker Judith Davis, Quartet Community Foundation CEO Rachel Robinson and Growing Futures director Beaula McCalla.
Any Bristol-based businesses interested in supporting youth services via 333 can follow the link, as can those who would like to apply for funding as a youth organisation in Bristol. Anyone from the general public can support the 333 campaign by donating to the GoFundMe.
The fundraising page states: "Over the last decade, the youth sector has seen devastating spending cuts up 70 per cent across the country, and Bristol continues to be no exception. We have decided to channel our energy into positive action and created a campaign to raise funds and make up the shortfall to assist all youth services across the city for the next three years."
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