SOULROOTS... The Way Forward

We are setting up a new Youth Trust to build on the achievements of the two separate trusts which have been running in S17 for the past ten years.

Churches for Youth in S17 and Dore Youth Worker Trust have been working ever more closely, and the two sets of trustees have decided that the time has come for a single organisation to carry on this work.

Background

We started off with separate youthwork projects both recruiting their own youth worker, whom the trusts managed separately. Very soon, the two youth workers started to cooperate.  Eventually, the youth workers from the two separate trusts worked as a team with one taking the lead on work with the younger age group across S17, the other with the older group. This joint working culminated in the formation of ‘Soulroots’ (formerly known as Steelroots) - a network of young people, youth workers and helpers spreading the Christian message through S17 and beyond.  For further information see the About Us page.

A joint management group was set up to oversee their work; this was a real step forward but could not get around the fact that they were employed by separate organisations, nor that all management decisions involving money had to go to two separate sets of trustees. So, the trustees decided we should come together as a single trust, running Christian youthwork across the whole of S17 through a single structure.

The new S17 Youth Trust

So far five churches in S17 have agreed to join forces to establish a single youth trust. Other churches are still considering their position and whether they also wish to support this venture. We all want to do the same thing: to take the message of Christ to young people in S17, to help them grow in faith and become active members of the Christian community in S17.

We can do that in part by working with young people who attend our churches but it is a simple fact that most young people do not come to church. As we have seen over the past decade, the most effective way of reaching them is to have clergy and lay volunteers working with professional youth workers. That is the approach we intend to continue.

The focus of our activity will be young people in Y6 and above, which means we will build on our links with junior schools as well as with King Ecgbert’s. We will reach out to young people from church and non-church backgrounds alike by running youth groups and building on the strengths of the ‘Soulroots Youth Community’.  We aim to help these young people develop as Christian leaders in their own right.  We want to support volunteers from all the member churches in taking the message of Christ to young people.

What needs to happen next?

First we need your prayers, both for the continued success of our current youth trusts and for success in the future.

We need your ideas for what we should – and perhaps what we should not – do in the future.

We need your financial support so that we can employ two youthworkers. We estimate we will need to raise in the region of £50,000 pa.

We will aim to raise much of this from grant-giving bodies and explore whether there are any volunteer student placement schemes. In any event it is crucial that we also have support from the members of the participating churches. Remember even small donations do mount up and will help us achieve our aims.

We need volunteers to work with young people and help support the mentoring of the youth workers.

And please tell us about any other offers of help you can give, whether small or large – it would be wonderful if someone could offer somewhere for a youth worker to live, or a car for them to use.

We want the new trust to take over seamlessly from the two present trusts in the summer of 2011, so:

If you want to become involved or support this venture in any other way, please talk to the representative from your church: