Mentoring and support for boys in South Leeds

St Luke’s Cares is a charity committed to making South Leeds a better place by harnessing the skills, abilities and confidence of local people to reach their potential. We caught up with them about their work, and the RISE project funded by Jimbo’s Fund.

Can you tell us a bit about St Luke’s Cares?

St Luke’s CARES has a track record of providing a variety of community projects to meet the needs of vulnerable and disadvantaged children, young people, unemployed people, elderly people and families living in poverty within inner South Leeds. These estates are renowned for violent crime, poverty, isolation and deprivation for almost 20 years. In addition, a high proportion of residents are young people, many of whom experience neglect, abuse and violence in their own homes. We aim to positively impact residents’ lives by helping individuals to identify and overcome personal barriers that prevent them from achieving their full potential. We do this by working with individuals, building a bond of trust, building their confidence and helping them make positive steps in their lives. We have a large charity shop which provides affordable clothing and furniture for the local community, and offers supported volunteer and work placements to local people runs training courses and support community cohesion activities. We also have two youth projects working with local young people aged 11-18, The Shine Project working with girls aged 11-18 in the LS10/LS11 area through work with local secondary schools, mentoring, youth clubs, crisis support work and detached/sports sessions and RISE working with at-risk boys aged 11-18 in the local area through mentoring, schools works, youth clubs and sports outreach.

What has funding from Jimbo’s Fund enabled you to do?

The Jimbo’s Fund was used by our boys project RISE, to enable us to invest more into our weekly youth community football sessions in Holbeck. We were able to offer 1-2-1 mentoring support for the most at-risk young people, run trips such as Jump Inc and watching Leeds Knights for those who attended the most sessions as well as running intervention workshops educating boys on issues such as knife crime, gang exploitation and grooming. The football sessions are always more than just football, they are an amazing opportunity to befriend the local young people and build meaningful relationships with them so we can support them and journey with them through some of the difficulties they face.

Can you tell us about the impact of what you do on the people you work with?

Mikey (name changed) has been attending our football sessions for a few years now. He has just finished year 11 and is desperate to work and earn an income. He is often seen hanging about Holbeck and in the past has been involved in anti-social behaviour and petty crime. His first job out of school didn’t last long so one of our youth workers started working with Mikey and his Mum to help him find the next best steps. His Mum was concerned about some of the friends he spent time with as she knew they were involved in drug dealing and didn’t want Mikey to get dragged into that way of life. Through our retail course at our local charity shop, Mikey now has the opportunity to write a CV, gain volunteering experience learn retail skills and receive a level 1 qualification that will help him when applying for jobs in the future. Both Mikey and his Mum are grateful for the support we have been able to offer over the years. “Rise has always given me something positive to do and helped me when I’ve needed it”

What are some of the biggest challenges you face as an organisation?

St Luke’s CARES like many other small charities is facing increased demand for services and limited and competitive funding while managing raising costs.

To sustain our offering of support to the South Leeds community we need to secure unrestricted funding. This is especially challenging, but critical in ensuring community organisations like St Luke’s CARES remain strong & resilient with good governance and high levels of service delivery.

How is your organisation preparing for the future, and what kind of funding is needed?

Over the next 12 months, we are still looking for funders’ support to continue the work we do in the community, and we especially enjoy working with new funders who bring different expertise and ideas we can share and learn from.

St Luke’s CARES is a community organisation that has successfully diversified over the past 20 years. So how do we ensure we are here for the next 20….. we are constantly looking at new ideas for projects and areas of the charity we can develop.

This summer we are launching the new website while increasing our online presence to share more of the amazing work we are doing across the charity in the community. Watch this space to see more from St Luke’s CARES.