Southmead Youth Centre Update

The team at the Southmead Youth Centre are really thankful to residents and members of the 1970s Southmead Facebook group for their support of our work over Christmas.

In the last year we have worked with more than 250 young people from Southmead and surrounding communities at our free open access sessions every week. We provide activities including sports, arts and crafts, cooking, music and dance classes.

Young people have increased their self-confidence, they have learnt new skills, they have made good, healthy choices and they have had the opportunity to fully understood their rights as young people.

In addition to the Southmead Youth Centre, we also took on management of the Southmead Adventure Playground (The Ranch) after it was at risk of being shut down when the council cut funding to all play work across the city. We now run three sessions of free open access play work for children and families at the Ranch.  We are incredibly pleased that we were able to ensure the Ranch stayed open and are working hard to keep it open for generations to come.

We have been able to support a local resident Mark to start running Bristol Combat Gym from the gym at the Southmead Youth Centre.  Marks pays rent which contributes towards the costs of running the youth centre, but he also works closely with our team to engage young people and residents in martial arts, fitness and dance classes.

Alongside all of this we also work with local schools and other organisations to support young people outside of these settings.  We are constantly fundraising and working with others across the city to ensure that young people and children are safe, and that Southmead is a community where young people can thrive and have the best start in life.

We can do this work because of small grants, a lot of fundraising, and the Southmead Development Trust’s trading business at the Greenway Centre.  Since taking on the management of the Southmead Youth Centre five years ago the Southmead Development Trust has invested wholeheartedly in youth work in Southmead.

By James Creed, Team Leader for Youth & Play
email: jamescreed@southmead.org
tel: 0117 950 3335