Happy New Year from Ignite Life!
2024 has been an exciting year for Ignite Life as we have launched new services, expanded our team and continued delivering essential and wraparound support for members of our community.
In 2024, Ignite Life continued with the provision of our three vital core services: 1:1 clinical counselling, 1:1 youth mentoring and food support services. Over the course of the year, we were able to provide*:
90 young people with 1:1 counselling
182 1:1 mentoring sessions
189 people per week with food
*these figures are estimates that we have calculated as we will not have access to end of year data and statistics until January.
2024 Ignite Life Events
In May 2024, Ignite Life hosted the first community fun day at Page Park in Staple Hill! The aim of the day was for our young people to be a part of an event that they helped plan and run. We had 10 young people who were part of the day: from running stalls, to organising raffles, advertising the event, and more. As an example, we had young people sell their woodwork and engage with their community. It was an amazing day and we raised £4000 for Ignite Life!
Ignite Day Trips
Throughout the year, Ignite organised and funded multiple day trips for young people who weren't in mainstream education. Some examples were: Go Karting, Zoo trips, and more! These days provide safe, social spaces for young people to experience joy with their 1:1 mentor and other young people.
Garden renovation
Ignite has built a working relationship with Page Community Association. As part of this partnership, the young people that we support, alongside their mentor, volunteered their time to help with building renovation. Page Community Association has allowed us access to their unused and overgrown garden space and our young people have been working to clear the area and prepare it to become a peaceful garden.
2024 New Projects
Meal Boxes
In April 2024, Ignite introduced new meal boxes to support families experiencing food insecurity by providing weekly recipe boxes. Each box contained 4 recipes and ingredients for a family of 4, totalling to 16 meals. The boxes also included cooking and budgeting tips, all for a total cost of £30 for 16 meals - making them easy to recreate!
Student Counsellor Placement
Ignite Life also launched a new student counsellor training programme. We enrolled three students, who are training to become youth counsellors, who will be completing their 100- hours of supervised counselling with us. We hope to expand this next year with new partnerships with more local schools!
Volunteer Shout Out
This year we have been supported by so many amazing volunteers and we wouldn't have been able to achieve as much as we have without them! We want to say a huge thank you to our regular volunteers and those who have joined for just a day event. Keep an eye on our social media pages for regular introductions to our amazing team.
Finally, we would like to say a big thank you to all of the funders who have supported us this year, it has made an enormous difference! Thank you for allowing us to continue carrying out valuable and life-changing work for the young people and families that we support.
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Keep an eye out...
2025 is going to be an exciting year for us at Ignite Life and we will need your support more than ever to achieve our big goals! We will be posting our 2025 goals in early January, so keep an eye out.
In the meantime, click here to donate…
