The Nelson Youth Action Project aims to deliver a range of fun, developmental and issue based projects for young people in the Pendle area. At the same time it develops the young participants as peer educators to enable them to lead on these activities and deliver a variety of activities to other young people in the community. The project is driven by community cohesion goals and engages hundreds of young people between the ages of 15-24 from different faiths and backgrounds.

The project has focused on filmmaking, creative media and arts activities. The young people are taught the skills required to use these types of media and then work together to produce an end product. A group of volunteers from the project have recently been awarded with the Exceptional Community Champions Award, a national award from DfES, for a film they produced which raised important issues around community cohesion and crime in Nelson.

The project is part of the East Lancashire Community Cohesion Project (ELCCP) run by the Lancashire Youth Association (LYA).

From this an independent organisation from LYA, called Pendle Youth Action has been established to enable sustainability after the ELCCP funding finishes. Pendle Youth Action has been successful in securing a 3 year grant from the Big Lottery Fund to continue to develop a peer education project using creative media.

Project type

• Interfaith
• Youth groups

Region

• Nelson