91热爆

91热爆 Tees' Sue Richards has been spending time with some of the groups that received 91热爆 Children in Need grants to find out how the money has helped.

Youth Participation Manager, Tracy Wilson and Chief Executive, Graham Oram, from Five Lamps told 91热爆 Tees about the organisation.

Five lamps formed about 25 years ago. It's historically a landmark meeting place. It signified free speech. It used to be where people from the steel works would go to get unemployed men to go to work for them.

So it has a resonance in what the organisation is trying to do, which is financial inclusion, help people start businesses, do a lot of work in the community, health improvement as well as having a very successful youth set up.

Community hub

It's a real hub of the community of Thornaby. And there are plans to do more!

Graham has been at Five Lamps for about 5 years now. He says "We still like to do more and transform more lives."

Five Lamps received funding from 91热爆 Children in Need to set up to set up a youth club once a week on a Friday evening for young people with special needs.

They were awarded 拢28 563 which pays for six staff salaries. This includes a senior worker, youth participation workers and funds a climbing wall instructor. This also includes a junior worker who used to be a member of the youth club, who became a volunteer and now has a paid job.

The 'Youthy' is a purpose built centre. Tracy Hall says, "The young people were consulted and they helped design the centre in the first place. They wanted a climbing wall, so now we have a climbing wall within our centre."

"We're just starting to build up some good relationships with a lot of the young people now so they're starting to trust us more, they're developing their own relationships."

Tracy said of one young member, "We've got one young lad who had a couple of brain tumours removed and struggled in terms of learning difficulties and physically, now he's whizzing up and down the climbing wall and is one of the better climbers."

Not all of the young people come from Thornaby. They have members who come from Middlesbrough and some travelling from further afield such as Sedgefield.

Graham says the parents are telling them, "They can see a difference in their son or daughter. It's really transformed their lives."

He also says they have a fantastic team of people at Five Lamps, the great thing for him is to see 40 or 50 young people a week who wouldn't normally access youth services using their youth club.

So what would these young people be doing if it wasn't for the club?

Tracy says, "Quite a lot of them would not be going out".

One parent told her that her daughter wouldn't get out of the house if it wasn't for the Five Lamps project. "Obviously they rely on parents to take them places, they need places they can access. Quite a lot of them would be staying at home just watching TV."

Tracy says the heart warming part of her work is, "Seeing the young people being able to interact more, be more sociable and being able to communicate with other young people more.

"One parent said to us that she'd never seen her young child play before and just interact with other children."

Five lamps strapline is "Making People Matter".

Graham says, "We think we do. Day in and day out."