Youth Club Celebrations!

Earlier this week, we were thrilled to welcome our budding and enthusiastic Youth Club members to a celebration ceremony event at our Thornes Park Campus. 

Joined by members of our Senior Leadership Team, our visionary chair Mohammed Jahangir, and esteemed Wakefield councillors, we awarded our boys and girls, who attend our bi-weekly Youth Clubs, with certificates in first aid and financial education – Alhamdulillah! 

Across the course of November and December, the children swapped their table-tennis rackets and pool cues for defibrillators and notepads as we gave them vital first-aid training and financial education by proven professionals in their respective fields. A vision set by both our Wakefield-born chair Mohammed Jahangir and Community Hub Manager, Zahid Khan, was to provide critical learning opportunities for the children as they prepare to battle adulthood. 

Four first-aid sessions for both groups were led by Penny Appeal’s very own health-and-safety wizard, Les Kirkman, who, with his levels of medical experience in the Royal Navy, taught the children the basics of the recovery position, how to use defibrillators and the importance of giving the correct CPR. 

Alongside these sessions were pivotal financial lessons, provided by Naj, who is the founder of Financial Planning 20:20. His expertise in managing money, avoiding debt, and the risks and vulnerabilities associated with all things money were fed back to our young members of Team Orange. 

The inspired youngsters were merited with a Level 1 certificate in First-Aid training, along with a Completion of Financial Education, supplied to them by our chair, and local councillors Kevin Swift and Hilary Mitchell. 

Speaking at the event, which also welcomed our Sessional Support Workers and the children’s parents and families, Mohammad Jahangir said, “as the chair of Penny Appeal, I am so proud of our progress in the last 12 months in our development of our Community Hub’.

He added, ‘having youth clubs and elderly groups operate from our very own campus was once a vision and a dream, and it is such an outstanding achievement to see members of the community in which I grew up in, come together five times a week. As a charity who largely work internationally deploying humanitarian aid, we found it was essential to do more work in the UK, so I would like to congratulate our young members, but also our Community Hub staff, because without them none of this would be possible. We now look to build on this important and fantastic work as and when we enter 2025, where we hope to put more fantastic ceremonies like this.’

Overall, it was both rewarding and exciting to see a handful of our local youngsters thrive in an environment we are so proudly able to offer them. It was a pleasure to host them at our orange home here in Wakefield and we can’t wait to see the incredible things they go on to achieve. 
If you’d like to learn more about our ‘at home’ and global mission, click here to take a look at our appeals.