Your Best Friend Fund Grantees

Asend SW CIC

A community interest company based in Torquay that prioritises engagement with small scale communities and marginalised groups via activities, promotion of positive mental health, and crime and harm reduction.

With the fund, they will be developing and offering a nine-week long educational programme on healthy and unhealthy relationships.

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Bollyfit Active CIC

A Manchester-based organisation that offers women-only sessions that incorporate cultural music and dance to improve the health and well-being of South Asian and BAME women in the local community.

With the fund they will be holding monthly workshops and create resources to discuss unhealthy and toxic relationships, and how to support friends who may be in them.

"We would like to hold a monthly full day workshop (12 in total) where we would get our young women and girls to co-produce and run the whole event, we would invite in speakers from various women’s organisations to share how they support women, we would invite young women and girls who are survivors of abuse to come to share their stories etc.

This project will get the right conversations started and no doubt educate the community, as we know the ripple effect will happen as women begin to speak openly and start discussions within their family and friends therefore leading to those who are experiencing abusive relationships beginning to recognise their situations and taking their next steps to safely step out of their abuse.

As we will have created awareness on recognising the signs of someone being in an abusive relationship, the women will be more confident to begin conversations with those who they feel might be going through abuse in a confident and culturally sensitive manner, leading to empowering and meaningful conversations, leading to empowering women to lead better lives, and saving lives.

We would like to take our young women and girls onto Heritage Radio to discuss our project and if we get the opportunity onto Asian Sound Radio and if possible on TV.

The long-lasting effect of this project can and will prove to be ground-breaking for the South Asian community as it will touch a subject that most of the community shy away from speaking, we believe this project will lead into openings of many other taboo subjects within the community to begin being talked about."

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Bridgend College

A further education college supporting young people across four campuses in Bridgend, Pencoed, Queens Road, and Maesteg.

With the fund, they will be devising three strands. One, developing and delivering a six-week sexual health programme. Two, a self-defence programme. Three, working with Pen & Paper Theatre Company to deliver Forum Theatre sessions.

"I was thrilled to receive the grant from the Your Best Friend project. It will make a huge difference to our students who identify as female and non-binary to give them the skills and confidence to feel safe within their immediate environment and local community. I'm looking forward to putting the project into action this September and seeing our students develop with the support of this funding."

Follow them online: Website

Earth Moves Cooperative

A Wallasey based organisation that offers wellbeing and transformational workshops, courses, and volunteering experience in their community gardens.

With the fund, they will be creating a program involving a range of activities, such as talking circles, gardening, etc, to educate young women and girls about toxic and unhealthy relationships.

"This grant will be used to educate young women and non-binary people to recognise dysfunctional and toxic relationship behaviours. This is done via psychological techniques, creative process, and mutual aid."

Follow them online: Website | Facebook

Fight for Peace - Lutadoras

A London-based organisation that supports young people to reach their full potential. The Lutadoras are a Fight for Peace group founded on building confidence and solidarity between young women, girls, and non-binary people.

With the fund, they will run a project that includes running 12 informative workshops, the creation of videos based on those sessions to be shared across social media, and a restorative residential for the Lutadoras.

“The Fight Peace Lutadoras group of women, girls and non-binary young people are excited and motivated to start our project in partnership with the Your Best Friend Fund. We think that this project is particularly important because of the lived reality of toxic relationships and the dangers that come with this. We also want to bring awareness of how important friends are when supporting people out of these situations and give as many young people as possible the confidence to hear and respond to their friends' situations.”

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Goldstar Creative Marketing

A London-based organisation that offers training and awareness programmes to support young women, girls, and non-binary people from the orthodox Jewish community.

With the fund they will be developing and delivering a series of culturally appropriate workshops to increase understanding of unhealthy and toxic relationships.

"Healthy relationships are important for all young people, and we are excited to create awareness amongst our Charedi audience, (particularly as they do not access social media due to cultural concerns.)"

Follow them online: Website

Latvian Community Assoc

A Peterborough-based organisation that promote social inclusion of Latvian people in the UK, and provide means and support for Latvian cultural and integration activities.

With the fund, they will be holding a monthly group where young people can participate in creative and wellbeing activities, focusing on topics that resonate with the young people.

"The grant will provide enable a monthly group to meet where young people can participate in creative and wellbeing activities, focusing on topics that resonate with the young people, like toxic relationships. One of their girls said: 'I will get support for no more coming back to me by saying “I’m sorry”, "I won't do that again”, “I will change”. And it is a safe space to meet friends and family."

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Rio Ferdinand Foundation

A youth and community development charity that works across the UK, working with disadvantaged communities to tackle the inequalities they face.

With the fund, they will be developing and delivering a series of sessions working through the Your Best Friend themes.

“The Rio Ferdinand Foundation Your Best Friend (YBF) project is working with a group of young females in the London borough of Lewisham. The girls are working with peers from our youth club hub as well as within schools to hold discussions on each YBF theme and work together to create a range of creative resources under each theme. Their resources will aim to raise awareness of positive/negative and toxic relationships and support other young females to stay in control and make decisions which are positive for their wellbeing so that they can navigate their way through relationships safely. Rio Ferdinand Foundation will then support the group to pull all of these resources together into a sharable toolkit and publish them in a coordinated social media campaign.” pull all of these

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Sandwell African Women Association

SAWA provides community support services to disadvantaged and vulnerable BME migrant women and children in the West Midlands.

With the fund, they will be setting up a youth peer support club that will provide a range of sessions that include informative workshops, and peer-to-peer discussions

“This grant from ‘Your Best Friend’ is helping our organisation in providing relationship education through a feminist perspective at an earlier age and more consistently to address many of the underlying issues that lead to abusive behaviour and the normalisation of abuse.

The grant has allowed SAWA to set up a peer youth support club that is organising awareness campaigns to end relationship abuse as well as empowering BME refugee young girls with the tools and resources they need to see the signs of healthy and unhealthy relationships. It is encouraging adolescents to question and take care of themselves, maintaining healthy relationships and consuming entertainment that does not promote beauty standards or normalize violence through patriarchal romantic love.”

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Sgiliau CBC

A Caerphilly-based creative training provider which specialises in supporting disadvantaged young people through informal sessions that encourage them to engage in positive motivational and confidence building.

With the fund, they will be running weekly sessions at centres in Risca, Brynmawr, and Pontypridd which will include informal social activities, creative activities, and talks from specialists on topics chosen by the young people.

"Sgiliau are thrilled to be involved in the ‘Your Best Friend’ project. We understand that young women, girls and non-binary young people often turn to their friends, for help and support during toxic relationships.

We want to empower young people and to improve their confidence through our youth provision. We want to make sure that friends have the knowledge to identify harmful behaviours and to keep themselves and their friends safe."

Follow them online: Website | Facebook

Sister System

A London-based organisation that offers early-intervention provision to overcome trauma and build resilience for care-affected girls and young women.

With the fund, they will be creating and facilitating a year of early-intervention workshops where Big Sisters (peer mentors already established within Sister System’s organisation) with lived experience will teach care-affected girls about identifying/avoiding toxic relationships and how to get help.

"Sister System are thrilled to be supported by Safe Lives and be part of the Your Best Friend community to teach girls in or affected by the care system about healthy relationships through lived and shared experience, as well as providing help to avoid abusive ones"

Follow them online: Website | Instagram | Facebook | Twitter

Spring into Action

An Accrington-based organisation that provides opportunities for people with learning disabilities to engage in activities, volunteer, and find employment

With the fund, they will be working with young women, girls, and non-binary people within the learning disabled and autistic community to hold peer support groups and create resources educating their peers on unhealthy relationships and how to support their friends.

“We are grateful to have received this funding and excited to begin working with young women with learning disabilities to empower them to speak up about toxic friendships and relationships. The funding will enable us to work in schools to co-create resources to increase the capacity within the learning disabled and autistic community and those who offer support, to recognise and respond to the many barriers they experience in developing and maintaining safe friendships and relationships. It acknowledges the lack of skill, knowledge, and information, identified as contributory factors in overcoming these challenges, which will lead to increased confidence and can contribute to improved mental and physical wellbeing.”

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St Helen’s The Best Me CIC

A Merseyside-based life coaching, consultancy, and training organisation who aim to empower young people and women.

With the fund, they will be developing and delivering empowering young people sessions and healthy relationship workshops.

“We are really excited to have received funding to equip our young people in St Helens, to understand how to spot toxic behaviours and know where to go for help. We will be working with local schools.”

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The YOU Foundation

A Bristol based organisation that provides a wide variety of youth services through open access services.

With the fund, they will be working with their skate committee group to design and plan workshops that can then be delivered to a wider group of young skaters across Bristol.

"There's been a huge boom in the popularity of skateboarding over the last few years and the biggest new wave of skaters is young women and girls. This is thanks to icons like Sky Brown competing in the Olympics for Great Britain, and other trail blazers. So we teamed up with Your Best Friend, Campus Skateparks, and the Consent is Rad campaign to provide workshops to explore healthy relationships, the topic of consent and how the skateboarding community can support each other more."

Follow them online: Website | Instagram | Facebook

Utulivu Women’s Group

A Berkshire-based organisation working with women, girls/young people, and seniors/elderly from minoritised communities with the aim of empowering them through events and activities.

With the fund, they will facilitate conversations run by and for young women and girls, along with a social media campaign, to raise awareness and understanding of healthy and unhealthy relationships.

''Stronger Together In Ending Toxic Relationships''

Follow them online: Website | Instagram | Twitter | Facebook

Warrior Martial Arts & Boxing CIC

A Pontypool-based organisation that combines martial arts and boxing with education and personal development to support young people in communities affected by crime, violence, and social exclusion.

With the fund, they will be hosting an afterschool club for two hours a week, where the first half will be dedicated to learning self-defence and the second half will consist of socialising and participating in spoken word workshops.

“The YBF grant will enable us to host a martial arts and personal development programme aimed at giving women, girls and non-binary young people the knowledge, confidence and tools to keep themselves and their friends safe in their dating relationships. We aim to create a peer support network and encourage young people to look out for each other.”

Follow them online: Website | Facebook

Wigton Youth Station

A social space in Wigton supporting young people to access and participate in positive activities.

With the fund, they will be providing sessions and workshops for their young people to learn about healthy and unhealthy relationships, and to be able to support each other.

“We were delighted to be chosen to receive a grant from Your Best Friend. This will allow us to work with a group of young women to focus on positive and negative relationship. We will look at triggers, warning signs, managing risk and ways to avoid/manage yourself in negative situations. We have a very good relationships with our young people and I know they will engage well to discuss this very important subject.”

Follow them online: Website | Facebook

YPPA

A Rotherham based performing arts community group that provides a safe space for young people to express themselves creatively.

With the fund, they will be running bi-weekly sessions alongside a social media campaign to support their young people in raising awareness through the arts.

"The project delivered as a result of the funding received enabled us to provide a safe, secure and friendly space for people to share experiences, views, opinions and situations in a dignified, respectful and helpful way. All our attendees told us they had found sessions really helpful (in our evaluation); that they had learned something to take away, been reminded/refreshed on key things when going about their day to day business or felt more empowered should they, or the people around them, face any difficulties or challenges in the future. Our project leaders feel the life skills developed along the way have been sensational! We cannot thank the team (at Safe lives) enough for their valuable and wonderful support. In particularly Damien has been a big help - nothing has been too much trouble along the way! Thank you so much."

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Meet the Your Best Friend Fund Grantees