Evolve Crowdfund for XLR8 Summer School Project

During the long 6-week summer holidays, many disadvantaged children can become at a loss of how to spend their time off. However, an social impact company are aiming to turn the summer into an enriching experience with their XLR8 Summer School.

Evolve, a social enterprise, is crowdfunding a new project to support young, disadvantaged children in the Birmingham area.

They aim to raise £10,000 by 29th June 2017, which will go towards creating a new XLR8 Summer School. The crowdfunding project will target 100 schoolchildren located in the East Birmingham area.

It will focus on children who will transition from Year 6 into Year 7.

Enriching Experiences

XLR8 Summer Schools are one of Evolve’s many projects which aims to support “schools, teachers and pupils through their trained and qualified Health Mentors”.

They believe that through mentoring, physical activities and classroom support, they can help schoolchildren “succeed in life”.

Carefully designed, these schools appear unique in that they offer engaging courses for children aged under 18-years-old. Run during the holidays, health mentors aim to support children develop lifelong skills, such as communication and teamwork.

Evolve have designed courses so they that never get boring! Through exciting activities, competitive games and involving parents, children will learn while also having fun.

We spoke to the crowdfunding project’s co-ordinator, Jeevan Chagger. As a Health Mentor, he has helped many children thrive in courses.

He explained: “Currently, there is very little opportunity available for young people in East Birmingham to attend holiday courses to help support and improve their health and wellbeing, particularly with school transition.

“Education still continues during our summer camp but in a different less formal style, which suits the learning styles of the more kinesthetic learners.

“Engaging the children in a positive, active holiday camp improves social skills and reduces the risk of the children choosing to get involved in petty crime and anti-social behaviour.”

Supporting Birmingham Children

Evolve agree with the principles laid out by Birmingham City Council who have stated:

“We want to help by providing every child living in Birmingham with an equal chance to have a really good start in life. This includes making sure they have a good level of development when they start school.”

Jeevan believes that a Birmingham-based XLR8 Summer School will help achieve this goal. He added:

“Supporting our project will enable us to be able to improve the health and wellbeing of these children, whilst also helping them develop their interpersonal skills, social skills, make new friends and dispel some of the fears around transition.”

The Health Mentor also stressed how in Evolve’s targeted area, many children come from a British-Asian background. He explained: “Currently there 7626 young people aged 10-14 live in our targeted area (census 2011). Approximately 1200 young people in our targeted area are of Asian background.

“Of these, 9.4% do not have a good standard of general health and 40.7% who live in deprived household areas.”

Evolve want to make a positive impact on the health and well-being of these young lives. This involves: “Finding the right balance to support their cohesion with others in the community, make new friends and bring about confidence within themselves.”

How can I support Evolve’s crowdfunding project?

Evolve have created a page for their XLR8 Summer School project, which you can make a donation here.

They are also offering limited sponsor rewards to individuals or organisations who have donated “either £1500 or £5000 respectively to feature on materials accordingly at this particular holiday course”.

By raising £10,000, this money will support 100 schoolchildren for one week with the XLR8 Summer School. Not only will they learn valuable skills. But they will develop friendships and confidence, of which children can feel anxious about when starting secondary school.

Jeevan concludes:

“This is an opportunity for you to give back to the community, support families and young people and offer the chance for young people to improve themselves, the future of society.”

You can also support the project on social media with the hashtag #100XLR8. The deadline for the project is 5.00pm, on 29th June 2017.

To learn more about Evolve and their projects, visit their website here. Or, you can get in touch with Jeevan about the campaign on Twitter with his handle @JeevanSChagger or his email [email protected].