Where We Work: UK and Europe
In 2017, Peace First and a coalition of organizations designed a strategy to create a new culture of youth-led social action in the UK, providing training and resources to unleash young people’s moral imaginations and encourage them to challenge injustice. Since then, we’ve directly funded an unprecedented number of youth-led projects to take action on pressing issues in their community, from access to employment to racism in schools and social isolation in the wake of COVID-19. In addition, we’ve run a dedicated Accelerator program for young people in the UK that has provided significant support to help young people make promising projects scalable and sustainable. Our work reaches well outside of London to all four nations of the UK, and our team is focused on ensuring that our program serves young people traditionally underrepresented in the social change space. In 2019, Peace First began growing in earnest in Europe, supporting young changemakers in Italy, France, Ukraine, and beyond to work on issues of public health, women’s access to STEM education and careers, and more.
Events and Opportunities
Our YSJC's are month-long learning experiences that support young people 13-25 to learn how to create social action projects, receive subject matter expertise and be a part of a Global and Europe Wide community in the injustice they want to challenge. This summer we will be hosting the Climate Justice Camp. The Climate Justice camp will explore climate related injustice over four sessions as well as give insight into how to create a social action project with Peace First. Apply Here!
Project Spotlights
Project Sonrisa - Emma Prach
Project Sonrisa has so far produced and published six episodes for the web series featuring a diverse group of young people with different backgrounds and experiences. “Creating a website, editing and marketing a project where all things I had to learn from scratch,” says Emma. But she received support from Peace First to get started, to help her think about the structure of each episode and how to market the web series on social media. Emma used social media and web analytics to track video views and website visits.
Growing up in the Midlands, Jaya experienced what it was like to belong to Black, Asian or minority ethnic (BAME) community. “Young people from BAME communities suffer the most from educational inequality and lack of social mobility, ever-widening the gap of achievement and Black, Asain and minority ethnic representation across institutions and powerful positions. Not only are people from these communities stigmatized by racial bias, but they are more likely to be from impoverished areas which also has a direct correlation to access to education and social mobility. Furthermore, young people from these communities are more likely to be victims of crime, and less likely to have access to opportunities inside and outside of school to change their reality,” Jaya notes.
BEAT
Nirushan is transforming Butetown in Cardiff by giving young people of color opportunities for professional development and help them find employment.