Funded by Near Neighbours, Catalyst Youth Leadership is an exciting and innovative programme, to help young people aged 16-26 from different backgrounds develop into positive role models. It equips young people with the skills and confidence to take on leadership roles, develop local social action and transform their own communities.
Over 50 young leaders have been trained in Luton so far. In Feb’23 half term, 12 more young people from Christian, Muslim, Sikh, Buddhist and no faith backgrounds completed this amazing 4-day leadership course, which included topics of Faith, Identity & Belonging, Leadership, Media & Effective Communication, Social Action and Positive Change.
Luton Council of Faiths Chair Prof Zafar Khan, said, “There are those who are storytellers and they are great at it as they inspire people by effective and positive storytelling, but there are those who create stories whose stories are told by others. Catalyst is about creating such story-makers.”
Some of the feedback provided by Catalyst participants included “it was a safe and welcoming learning environment”, “these four days have been of high quality leadership training”, “the trainers were extremely good & inspirational”, “we gained practical skills and knowledge to build confidence, effective communication and leadership skills”, “we are glad to have had this amazing opportunity to discuss and critically think about some of the most pressing issues of our time”.
Thanks to the Centre for Youth & Community Development (CYCD), Leagrave Rd, Luton for hosting this programme at their premises. CYCD shares the vision of mentoring youngsters and helping them grow into responsible citizens and leaders for a better and brighter future of our world.
Thanks to Near Neighbours for supporting programmes like CATALYST and other initiatives. For more info, please visit (www.near-neighbours.org.uk)
Thanks to Luton Council of Faiths, Grassroots, The Feast Programme and Att10tive Luton for their support. Together we all share the vision of mentoring youngsters, helping them grow into responsible citizens and leaders for a better world.
In our multicultural world, our identities are complex as we are shaped by many different factors – our upbringing in life, where we live, our racial, ethnic, religious backgrounds etc. And all these factors influence our understanding of contemporary political, moral and social issues such as immigration, integration, gender & racial justice, violence & extremism, citizenship, equal economic opportunity and freedom of speech. In Catalyst training programme, young people learnt about the challenges of prejudice, stereotypes and discrimination and how best to tackle them and how we all can take away something positive that another race, religion or belief, other than our own, brings to the British society.
Luton young people from different faiths and of no faith learning Leadership skills at the Near Neighbours funded Catalyst Youth Leadership Training Programme.