• Features writer Hannah Gray finds out about some of the charity's projects in Peterborough:


• Welland Boxing Academy
  Finding activities that young people will enjoy doing and stick with can sometimes be a challenge, but Heidi Chaggers thinks she has found the answer.


• Champion Soccer Skills, Peterborough
  Michael Calvin could have had a career in professional football, but he knew his heart was set on running his own coaching business – and luckily The Prince's Trust was on hand to help out.


• The Prince's Trust Team programme
  The issue of young people classed as NEETs – those not in education, employment or training – has been something of a political hot potato for the Labour Government in recent years, but here in Peterborough, at least, some of those in need of help are able to get it.

Factfile: Prince's Trust Youth Week
Youth Week runs until today, and aims to highlight the positive difference young people can make to society.

The Prince of Wales launched the event last week on his 60th birthday, in a bid to combat the recent barrage of negative headlines around teenagers, in particularly knife crime. As well as aiming to change the public's negative perceptions, it also focuses on young people's wellbeing, encouraging them to seek support from organisations like The Prince's Trust.

The trust works in a number of ways. It has a business programme to help young people start their own business. This is open to anyone aged between 18 and 30. The team programme is open to youngsters aged 16 to 25.

There are also Development Awards, to help young people access education, training and employment, and Community Cash Awards for young people working on a project to benefit the community.

A scheme called Get Into involves short courses to develop skills in a specific sector, and the xl programme is personal development for students in their last two years of compulsory education.

For more information about projects locally, call Anne Pollard on 07879 897565 or visit www.princes-trust.org.uk/youthweek.


Welland Boxing Academy
Finding activities that young people will enjoy doing and stick with can sometimes be a challenge, but Heidi Chaggers thinks she has found the answer.

Heidi (28) and her family are boxing fans, and her partner, Quinton Law (27), is a qualified boxing coach, so she decided that she would share her passion with youngsters on the Welland estate, where she lives.

She had been involved with a boxing club before which had folded, but decided that there was the need for something for young people to do in the evening.

Heidi started the Welland Boxing Academy in August and it now has between 30 and 40 youngsters on the books, as well as another coach, Fred Smith.

It has been helped along the way by the Prince's Trust, which gave it £2,000.

Providing something for young people to do was very important, according to Heidi.

She said: "People often put down where we live, saying there is nothing going on here, there's no sports facilities etc, but it's not that bad. There's a play centre (the Chatteris Centre), which is brilliant for younger children, but older children can't go in there. They're just hanging about doing nothing."

So far, things are going well with the boxing academy.

Heidi said:"They do like it and we got a great response.

"It's not just for this estate, it's for Dogsthorpe and Parnwell as well."

Heidi feels she is making a difference, and the club is proving popular with others on the estate. Welland residents have given the club money as has Beebys, a local business.

The club may run on a relatively small scale at the moment, but Heidi has big plans for it.

"I'd like to see it as a proper boxing club," she said. "I'm happy as it is, but it would be nice if we could have had a better building, but, at the moment, it's good enough for us.

"We'd also like to see some of the boys in the Olympics one day. I'd like to achieve something like that."

Although Heidi is doing her bit to help young people in Welland, she is aware that more needs to be done. So what would she like to see in an ideal world?

"I'd like to see us have a sports complex building on here or some sort of building that caters for sport. Werrington and Bretton have got their own places, so why can't we? It's not just for Welland, it's Dogsthorpe and Paston as well, they haven't got anything. It would be nice to have a permanent sports building," she said.

The Welland Boxing Academy costs £2 a session, and runs on a Monday, Thursday and Friday at the Big Blue Mobile at the end of Normaton Road. Sessions for five to 10-year-olds run from 6pm to 7pm and from 7pm to 8pm for anyone aged over 11. For more information, call 07746 464824.

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Champion Soccer Skills, Peterborough
Michael Calvin could have had a career in professional football, but he knew his heart was set on running his own coaching business – and luckily The Prince's Trust was on hand to help out.

The 20-year-old had a trial with Exeter, and was offered a contract with a team in America, and even went so far as to spend some time Stateside.

But while he was there, he realised where he belonged.

"I was thinking 'Is this really for me, or can I make a difference in England?'," he said.

Michael was determined to come back to his home city – he lives in Ravensthorpe – and do some good.

"I wanted to provide football for children, not only at schools, but as an extra curricular activity. I also wanted to give them opportunities they might never have again such as stadium tours and football trips out," he said.

So last September he contacted the Prince's Trust and, by November, had started his business, Champion Soccer Skills.

Today he works in schools around the city and teaches youngsters ranging in age from four to 14.

The help he has received from the trust includes a start-up loan, access to a solicitor, who has helped Michael draw up the contracts with the schools, and the on-going support of his mentor, Steve, who Michael still meets every two weeks, and who is vital to Michael's success.

Michael said: "We basically talk over things such as what we want to get done in the next two weeks, what sort of money we're earning. He's that person on the end of the phone."

He is very clear that his business is all about opening up opportunities to play sport, not about people being fantastic at it.

"I'm not looking for the next best thing," he said. "I do work for Peterborough United with one of their Centre of Excellence teams, but the main thing with my schools is allowing them to play, allowing them to have new equipment and be coached by people who wouldn't normally come into their school."

As well as teaching youngsters himself, Michael now employs two people to help run his courses and classes.

And he has even bigger plans for the future.

"My plan is by 2010 we will have schools not only in Peterborough and the vicinity but all the way down to London. I plan in 2010 or 2011 to be looking to do all sports in the build up to the 2012 Olympics," he said.

So grateful is Michael for all the support the Prince's Trust has given him, he has become an ambassador to promote its work.

"Without the Prince's Trust, I definitely wouldn't be where I am now. I'm not just talking where the business is financially, but all the support," he said.

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The Prince's Trust Team programme
The issue of young people classed as NEETs – those not in education, employment or training – has been something of a political hot potato for the Labour Government in recent years, but here in Peterborough, at least, some of those in need of help are able to get it.

The Prince's Trust Team programme is aimed at young people, aged up to 25 who have not necessarily fallen off the rails, but who are not on track for a particular career or training.

The scheme is funded as a higher education course, and run by youth workers from the city council, in conjunction with Peterborough Regional College.

Mike Pummell, who is a curriculum specialist youth worker on the Prince's Trust Team, and helps run the course, said there are a complex range of situations which can lead young people to need a scheme such as this.

He said: "There is a whole raft of reasons why young people find themselves in a gap in their education and their training and it is anything from family to housing issues.

"They might have stalled for whatever reason, they might have lost some confidence for whatever reason."

The 12-week programme includes a team-building residential course, a community project to benefit others, work placements and help with things such as CV writing and interview techniques.

The most recent course started at the end of September, and the leaders try to hand over the course from about week four so it become self-driven, with the emphasis very much on the young people helping themselves.

"We tend to open doors," Mike said. "We don't actually do anything, we just give them the opportunity to find out what their strengths are. We do nudge them in the right direction but generally speaking, they just kick into gear."

Another of the scheme's leaders - Shirley Rusdale - is also one of its success stories. She was 24 when she joined the programme.

"I was a single parent just going from odd job and just plodding through really. The opportunity came up and I took it. I didn't know how to get into what I wanted to do," she said.

Mike said: "I see Shirley as one of the success. She came on the programme and before it started she didn't know what she wanted to do but was saying she thought she wanted to do youth work."

Nationally, 70 per cent of unemployed team members go on to a job, education or training within three months of completing the scheme.

Shirley puts the success of he programme down to it being so unique.

"There isn't any training like this out there, it's completely different.

"It's informal learning," she said.

Working as they do with young people, both Shirley and Mike are aware of the negative image often portrayed of children and young adults.

Mike said: "It's something we have to combat as young people's services. Our task really is to show the young people are participating in local democracy, and local communities and making a positive contribution."

And both of them get enormous pleasure from the role they play in helping the members of the group to turn their lives around.

Mike said: "It's gives you great satisfaction to see their families come up to you and say 'my son or daughter is a different person', and that happens on a regular basis, and that means they've made an effort to change the way they operate."

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For more information about projects locally, call Anne Pollard on 07879 897565 or visit www.princes-trust.org.uk/youthweek.