The Alpkit Foundation awarded a grant to the Durham City Centre Youth Project to help towards equipment that can in turn help them deliver, Duke of Edinburgh Award and more outdoor programmes to young people from a variety of backgrounds and abilities.
Having delivered the award in partnership with Durham county council for years, they rely heavily on sourcing grants for equipment. This equipment is then used to loan to individuals which helps make these expeditions as affordable as possible. The youth project itself was started in 1967 and is likely to become an independant charity again soon as the local authority are due to cease funding shortly for all open access youth work.
Geoff from the project explains. "As a small charity we are facing mounting pressures from reduced funding from local authority and others. We are constantly seeking funding to maintain the service which we provide, which so far we have been successful with. But in order to maintain our outdoor programme we need to have a good store of equipment so that all young people in the area can benefit, the help of the AK foundation would mean that we could help many more young people access the outdoors in a way that they would not normally be able to."