The SNG #iwill Fund 2.0 – Wellbeing Champions Programme Grants
Since launching in October 2023, the SNG #iwill Fund 2.0 – Wellbeing Champions Programme (WCP) has awarded 36 projects a share of £341,595.79.
Youth panel member, Jack, is one of those involved in awarding the grants. He said: “I love scoring these as it feels I get a say and have an impact on giving funds to communities which aim to provide youth-led youth social action to benefit mental health and wellbeing, which is very important in life today, so having a chance to make a difference and contribute in a great way is so rewarding."
Find out more about our Wellbeing Champions Programme and when applications are reopening.
Round 2 grant winners
In September 2024, applications opened for the second round of the Programme. After receiving 79 applications, we awarded just under £200k to 21 organisations across SNG’s geography to deliver their interpretation of the programme. The successful projects will be delivered from February – October 2025.
Read about the successful second round projects
Art4Space’s Art for Social Change Project received £9,500.
Art4Space will upskill 20 young people aged 10-16 to become Wellbeing Champions and empower them with the skills and understanding of how to be community activists, giving them the confidence to use their power with determination. Art4Space will collaborate with 3 local schools to provide opportunities for young people to become Community Leaders, with a focus on those at risk of dropping out of education. Based at their community arts studio, the Wellbeing Champions will engage in creative art activities addressing local issues they are passionate about and repurposing and recycling materials to promote sustainability.
Beyond the Bias’ Mental Health Youth Board received £10,000.
Beyond the Bias will use their learnings from their first cohort to empower 15 new young people to become Mental Health Wellbeing Champions and establish their own Youth Mental Health Board. Wellbeing Champions will be trained up as Mental Health First Aiders and become skilled researchers and community engagers. One upskilled, they will split into teams, with each team developing and delivering their own social action projects of their choice focused on addressing local mental health needs. They will also be able to gain an OCL Level 1 Project Management qualification.
Coastline Community Trust’s Joy Wellbeing Champions Project received £10,000.
Coastline Community Trust will upskill and empower 20 young people aged 14-16 with knowledge and practical skills to improve their own, and their peers, mental health through weekly Wellbeing Sessions held at their café. The Wellbeing Champions will discuss their social action ideas before collectively deciding on one they will plan, promote and deliver themselves, and then be invited back to continue their learning and mentor new young people joining the project.
Creative Kids’ The Pod Squad – Little Voices, Big Ideas Project received £10,000.
Creative Kids aims to empower 20 young people aged 10-20, each with lived experience of poverty, by giving them a platform to discuss the issues that matter most to them through podcasting. Working in Partnership with Soniche Productions, the young people will be upskilled as Wellbeing Champions to gain valuable digital skills and social action tools, equipping them to create an impactful online campaign, which will empower, educate and challenge perceptions of the impact of poverty on young people’s mental health and wellbeing.
Eastside Young Leaders’ Academy’s Wellbeing Champions: Mental Health Advocacy through Social Action Project received £10,000.
Eastside Young Leaders Academy aims to upskill at least 15 young people aged 11-16 to become Wellbeing Champions, who are empowered to take control of their own mental health, support others and create lasting social impact. The Wellbeing Champions will be trained in mental health and wellbeing, peer support strategies, leadership skills, the principles of youth social action and more, before working in teams to design and lead their own social action projects of their choice, focused on mental health advocacy and community wellbeing.
Find out more information about Eastside Young Leaders’ Academy 
.
Eat Club’s Young Leaders Wellbeing Champions Project received £6,000.
Eat Club will add a youth social action element to their existing Young Leaders Programme by upskilling 8 young people aged 16-20 to become Wellbeing Champions. Their Wellbeing Champions will be trained in social action and leadership, project design and planning, mental health and wellbeing awareness, communication and advocacy and more before creating their own project proposals, which they will then deliver to their community.
Escapeline’s Peer Mentoring & Education Programme received £5,000.
Escapeline will establish a peer mentoring programme in the Bournemouth area where young people are trained to educate their peers on county lines before delivering a youth social action project of their choice, on this topic.
Escapeline will support 30 young people aged 10-11 to establish a peer mentoring programme in the Bournemouth area where young people are trained to educate their peers on county lines before delivering a youth social action project of their choice, on this topic. This programme will help young people look after their own mental health and support their peers through mentoring.
Exeter City Community Trust’s Proactive Wellbeing Project received £10,000.
Exeter City Community Trust will use their learnings from their first cohort to recruit 15 new young people in Years 9 and 10 and upskill them to become Wellbeing Champions. The Wellbeing Champions will be trained in mental wellbeing, emotional regulation and physical health and more, and once upskilled, will deliver community outreach around each of the three topics, encouraging their peers to also get involved.
Find out more information about Exeter City Community Trust .
Future Pages’ A Bridge to the Future Project received £10,000.
Future Pages will empower 20 young people aged 12-14 by addressing their mental health concerns related to environmental sustainability, with anxieties about the future being a key topic. The young people will be upskilled in sustainability, mental health and anxiety, and hear from guest speakers, to become Wellbeing Champions, before working in teams to identify local environmental issues and developing and delivering their own social action project to lead on. Peer support groups will also be created through the project, so the young people have a safe space to support each other.
Gillingham Youth Club’s Empowerment Through Action Project received £10,000.
Gillingham Youth Club will upskill 20 young people aged 10-16 to become Wellbeing Champions through workshops on leadership, project management, mental health and more. The Wellbeing Champions will then complete a series of community projects, including a social media campaign to encourage neighbourhood clean ups, creating a mural themed around wellbeing and creating a community garden and lots more.
Lambourn Junction CIC’s Lambourn Youth Council (LYC) received £9,000.
Lambourn Junction CIC will work closely with 16 young people aged 11-17 to create the LYC, which will be a formal body to represent the voices of young people in Lambourn, modelled on the structure of the parish council. The young people will act as Wellbeing Champions by discussing relevant topics before identifying, planning and delivering wellbeing and mental health projects for their peers.
Me2 Club’s Include Me2 Mental Health Champions Phase 2 Project received £10,000.
Me2Club will use their learnings from their first cohort to support 15 new young people aged 10-20 from Reading and Wokingham with their own mental health, using resources already produced, aiming to upskill them and recruit them as Mental Health Champions. The young people will decide on social action projects to complete but for example, may decide to set up a Health Engagement Day, do an annual Takeover Day of Me2 Club or attend a disability inclusion festival. Training will be provided on how to become a Mental Health Champion and to plan details of the social action projects.
MYTIME Young Carers’ Remembering Me Project received £10,000.
MYTIME Young Carers will upskill 15 young carers aged 10-20 to become Wellbeing Champions through learning about mental health, wellbeing and social action before using their own research and experiences to decide on the topic and format of their own youth social action project focusing on materials that support young carers transitioning to into secondary school and university. Once the resources have been produced, they will be shared with young carers across Dorset, Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole, and the Isle of Wight.
RMD Adventure Learning C.I.C’s #iwill Youth Participation Project received £10,000.
RMD Adventure Learning C.I.C will work with 30 young people aged 10-20 to form a Youth Advisory Board who will set up, deliver and evaluate their own social action projects and act as an advisory service to the voluntary sector. The board will also feed into the Basingstoke Local Children’s Partnership to give their views on current issues affecting them and their communities. The young people will be provided with mental health and wellbeing training and will have the opportunity to become Wellbeing Champions, with at least 15 Wellbeing Champions supported to continue their journey after the project comes to an end.
Sculpt’s VoiceUp Project received £10,000.
Sculpt will upskill 20 young people aged 14-16 to become Wellbeing Champions in their local communities through workshops in youth social action, public speaking, wellbeing and mental health before engaging in guided debates focusing on issues that affect young people’s wellbeing and mental health. As well as attending a community-based networking event to explore how organisations can support their wellbeing within the community, the Wellbeing Champions will work in teams to explore solutions to challenges before planning their own social action project to raise awareness and inspire change within the community, which will be presented to a panel of key community leaders. The winner will receive £500 and be supported to deliver their project.
SMASH Youth Project’s Transitions Peer Mentoring Project received £10,000.
SMASH Youth Project will use their learnings from their first cohort and support their established Wellbeing Champions in ‘pitching’ their peer mentoring programme, which they engaged in last year, in a ‘Dragon’s Den’ style pitch to senior leadership and students at a local school. The Wellbeing Champions will be further upskilled through Trauma-Informed Practice and Mental Health First Aid training, before supporting their peers at the local school to become peer mentors for new year 7 students in September 2025.
The Abingdon Bridge’s Making Waves Project received £10,000.
The Abingdon Bridge will upskill 15 young people aged 16-20 to become Youth Ambassadors who will identify areas of wellbeing they want to focus on and learn how to amplify their voices to make local social change and support their peers. Once upskilled, the Youth Ambassadors will plan events and projects to take place over the summer and train and mentor the next cohort of Youth Ambassadors.
The Black Boy Joy Club’s Community Kitchen Project received £10,000.
The Black Boy Joy Club will support 15 boys and young men aged 16-20 to become Wellbeing Champions using cookery as a way to facilitate conversations around healthy eating, lifestyles and broader mental and physical health and wellbeing. Each class will be based on a different element of mental health and wellbeing with the view that each dish is low-cost and easy to recreate at home. After each cookery session, the Wellbeing Champions will eat together and be upskilled in social action, wellbeing and health aspects before planning and delivering their own social action projects of their choice.
The Mason Foundation’s Propel Buddy Programme received £10,000.
The Mason Foundation will upskill 25 young people aged 15-19 to become Wellbeing Buddies, through mentoring and a series of workshops, including emotional wellbeing, mindfulness and how to set aims and goals. The Wellbeing Buddies will then volunteer at a local hospital to buddy with at least 4 young patients aged 5-18, providing peer support. At the end of the project, they will assess its success, encourage other young people to join a National Youth Forum and develop a framework for future cohorts of the project where current Wellbeing Buddies can become mentors for new recruits.
Unexpected Places’ Keeping Well Creatively Project received £10,000.
Unexpected Places will recruit 20 young people aged 10-20 to become Wellbeing Champions through their youth theatre Light UP sessions, who will identify and create their own healthy wellbeing and mental health mechanisms and address how they can support others within the theatre community. The Wellbeing Champions will create their own youth-led social action project, focusing on empowering young people to feel unashamedly themselves, which will embed creative health practices for life. A wellbeing lead will also be appointed to the organisation’s Youth Board where they will evaluate the social action projects and input any learnings into the future of the charity.
Youth Moves’ Youth Wellbeing Champions Programme received £10,000.
Youth Moves will upskill 15 young people aged 13-19 to become Wellbeing Champions who will explore different aspects of wellbeing with a focus on the links between both physical and mental wellbeing. Wellbeing Champions will then be split into two teams to plan and deliver social action projects for their peers, the first team focusing on physical activity sessions and the benefits of keeping fit, and the other team focusing on mental health awareness and delivering awareness workshops to their peers. Wellbeing Champions will also take part in healthy eating and cooking workshops and towards the end of the project, will train the next cohort of young people.
Round 1 grant winners
In October 2023 we invited applications for the first round of the Programme. After receiving 76 applications, we awarded just over £150k to 16 organisations for projects delivered between February and October 2024.
Read about the successful first round projects
Aspire Ryde’s Harmony for Youth project received £9,700.
Aspire Ryde upskilled 12 young people aged 10-20 to become Wellbeing Champions and act as peer advocates for mental health within their community. The Wellbeing Champions engaged in weekly music sessions and mental health training before leading on their own social action projects relating to mental health and wellbeing. The project also empowered an additional 42 young people through the therapeutic influence of music, mental health awareness and a focus on healthy lifestyles, and included organising 3 outdoor events where participations showcased their original songs and promoted mental wellbeing.
Berkshire Youth’s Wellbeing Champions Programme received £9,833.
Berkshire Youth upskilled 23 young people from Year 8 and 9 (aged 12-14) to become Wellbeing Champions, acting as peer advocates with a focus on the transition from Primary to Secondary school at the end of Year 6. The Wellbeing Champions were empowered to share the knowledge they learned with their younger peers and built a peer-support network, before leading on 3 social action projects of their own. One of their projects was the creation of a film to support wellbeing and sharing this on social media and with local schools to spread awareness. Wellbeing Champions were also offered ASDAN qualifications in Leadership and work experience in film school.
Beyond The Bias’ Mental Health Youth Board received £10,000.
Beyond The Bias empowered 15 young individuals aged 14-20 to become Mental Health Wellbeing Champions and established a Youth Mental Health Board that led the charge in creating positive change. The Board researched and explored mental health issues within their local areas before forming teams to develop 15 social action projects of their own addressing the local mental health needs. These projects resonated well within the community, with each one attracting over 50 attendees, demonstrating both the impact and relevance of the topics. Wellbeing Champions were also able to gain First Aid and Project Management qualifications.
Building HER's Building HERitage Wellbeing Project received £10,000.
Building HER upskilled 15 young females aged 10-20 as Wellbeing Champions by offering mental wellness and skill-building sessions and a spa retreat bonding experience. Once trained, the Wellbeing Champions then collaborated in groups to create 4 social action projects of their own, focusing on increasing the intergenerational connection between older and younger people in the community and recording a podcast series featuring industry professionals.
Didcot TRAIN’s IMPACT Peer Mentoring Programme received £9,808.
Didcot TRAIN upskilled 20 young people aged 10-16 as Wellbeing Champions and established a peer mental health and wellbeing mentoring programme where older students mentored younger children at their HQ, the Base, and within local schools. The programme included training in mental health and wellbeing topics and team building exercises before the young people led on a youth social action project of their own around making resources to improve the school’s values’ system and reward mental wellbeing. Wellbeing Champions also completed MIND’s Mental Health Awareness Training and coaching sessions to be peer mentors.
Exeter City Community Trust’s Preventative Wellbeing Project received £7,720.55.
Exter City Community Trust upskilled 24 young people aged 10-16 to become Wellbeing Champions through weekly sessions utilising localised youth and mental health support in their area and social action before they led on 2 social action projects of their own, both focused on preventative wellbeing. Their first project was the creation of resources to share the knowledge they’d learned and improve access to wellbeing information for their peers in schools, followed by their second project which focused on increasing intergenerational community connection through creating Wellbeing postcards for older people.
Find out more information about Exeter City Community Trust.
Independent Arts’ Wellbeing Through Arts Project received £9,943.
Independent Arts upskilled 11 young people aged 10-16 to become Wellbeing Champions by facilitating the space for them to improve their own mental health and wellbeing, as well as others, through collaboratively creating artwork that creates natural conversations and discussions around mental health, wellbeing and youth social action. The young people led on 5 creative youth social action projects that aimed to make changes in their local community, the last one being a public multimedia mural promoting cleaner oceans and reducing ocean waste.
Me2 Club’s Metal Health Wellbeing Champions Programme received £9,487.
Me2 Club upskilled 17 young people with additional needs and disabilities to become local Youth Mental Health & Wellbeing Champions by providing training on specific mental health and wellbeing topics before supporting the Wellbeing Champions to lead on 7 social action projects of their choice. Wellbeing Champions attended a Wokingham Borough Council meeting to share their views and increase youth voice within the area, led a charity Takeover Day, helped to design apps for young people around mental health and wellbeing, helped design content and attended an Inclusivity Festival, designed mental health resources with Reading Mental Health Support team and lots more.
Pavilion on the Park’s Youth 4 Youth Project received £7,430.49.
Pavilion on the Park upskilled 15 young people aged 10-20 to become Wellbeing Champions who then led on 3 social action activities focusing on positive mental health and wellbeing for 23 other young people, including planning a Wellbeing Day.
Plymouth Sports Charity’s Can You Kick It – Plymouth Project received £9,040.
Plymouth Sports Charity upskilled 18 young people aged 10-16 as Wellbeing Champions through weekly training sessions in sports, nutrition and youth social action. The Wellbeing Champions then led on their own social action project around delivering well-being initiatives to and mentoring their peers, fostering skill development, confidence building and community engagement.
SMASH Youth Project’s Bridge the Gap Project received £10,000.
SMASH Youth Project upskilled 25 young people in Year 10, aged 14-15, as Wellbeing Champions who went on to act as peer mentors for 10 younger students aged 11-12, who were transitioning from Year 6 to Year 7. They then lead 2 social action projects of their own, forming a Creative Committee which aimed to suggest ideas to improve the programme to help the next Year 6’s with their transition.
Testlands’ Youth Advisory Board Project received £9,988.
Testlands upskilled 10 young people aged 10-16 as Wellbeing Champions through a variety of training programmes including leadership development, teamwork and collaboration, event planning, communication and more who then went to form their Youth Advisory Board. The Wellbeing Champions researched and discussed local issues around mental wellbeing and led on planning and delivering 5 social action projects of their own to 43 other young people, including running a week-long series of mindful activities and designing and delivering workshops around wellness, inclusivity, health, and engaged young carers in wellbeing activities.
The Avenues Youth Project’s Mental Health Champions Project received £9,145.
The Avenues Youth Project upskilled 19 young people as Wellbeing Champions through training on various topics including mental health awareness, self-care, active listening and stigma reduction to equip them with the knowledge, skills and confidence to assist their peers with mental health challenges. Once fully trained, the young people led on 2 social action projects of their own, focusing on supporting wellbeing within their community. Their first project was a 1-week charity takeover where they designed and led wellbeing activities for their peers, and their second project focused on improving mental health awareness in schools through producing videos to share publicly and writing letters to key members of staff.
The Reanella Trust’s Resilience Recovery Relief Project received £10,000.
The Reanella Trust upskilled 30 young people as Wellbeing Champions by training them in essential skills and knowledge in mental health and wellbeing. Once fully trained, the Wellbeing Champions led on planning and delivering 6 social action projects of their own to 17 of their peers, focusing on reducing stigma and increasing awareness around anxiety and depression. Supported by mentorship, ongoing learning and a network that encouraged their sustained involvement in youth social action, the Wellbeing Champions are equipped to continue their impact now the project has come to an end.
Wapping Youth FC’s Leaders of Tomorrow Project received £10,000.
Wapping Youth FC upskilled 15 young people as Wellbeing Champions by delivering a series of workshops in leadership, event planning, safeguarding and more before discussing mental health concerns in their community and how they can address it to support their peers. Once fully trained up, the Wellbeing Champions planned 10 social action projects of their own, manging a £500 budget for each, ranging from facilitating free physical activity sessions to producing food parcels and providing free marketing and website building.
