History
Knights Youth Centre is an independent, voluntary and well established Christian youth centre founded in 1936 (charity no 303280). The Centre provides a quality youth service for approximately 150 young people each week (some of whom attend 3 or 4 times per week), living on and around the Clapham Park Estate, an area of high social and economic need in Lambeth, London.
As a Christian organisation, the Knights Youth Centre seeks to provide an oasis for all children, irregardless of their gender, race, culture, religion, sexuality or disability. As a Centre we do not seek to overwhelm or indoctrinate young people, but feel called to stand alongside them when we’re needed and provide a positive living example of ‘community care’!
Our Aims
- Offer a diverse range of activities and opportunities for young people that are enjoyable, challenging, educational and informative through which they gain knowledge, new skills and experience.
- Provide a secure and caring environment where young people who are in transition through adolescence to adulthood can develop self-awareness and self-confidence whilst exploring and developing positive relationships both with peers and adults.
- Enable young people to recognise their own skills, talents, abilities, and limitations. To offer opportunities to develop these, create possibilities for achievement in a wide range of disciplines and to help young people see their potential and the contribution they can make in their own communities and society at large.
- Enable young people to recognise prejudice and discrimination both in themselves and others; to challenge such prejudice and inequality when they encounter it, value difference and promote equality of opportunity.
- Enable young people to be involved in making decisions within their units and develop skills and understanding which enables them to make responsible and informed decisions about their own lives.
- Offer young people the facility for advice, support and counselling in a caring environment.
Knights provide a weekly service for young people aged 8 – 24. The service includes a range of diverse, challenging and age/culture relevant programmes including gender based workshops, sports coaching, music and video production, arts and dance as well as all the standard ‘youth centre’ activities. One of our flagship programmes is TYLAP (Trainee Youth Leader Apprenticeship Programme). TYLAP provides leadership, training, qualifications and employment opportunities for 30 young people aged 16 – 24 in youth and community work each year. We offer all young people the opportunity of developing new experiences away from their environment. Such experiences include day trips, weekends away and week long residentials in the summer. For example, in 2007 we took a group of young people to work with an orphanage in Rwanda.
The Centre employs one full time Senior Youth Worker, a part time TYLAP Coordinator, Walcot Apprentice Support Manager, Young Women’s Development Worker, Senior Outreach Project Worker and a range of part time Apprentice Youth Workers and an Administrator. The Centre also has a team of 30 volunteers.