Cardiff Youth Council is bidding to bag a massive cash boost from the Tesco Bags of Help initiative.
Tesco teamed up with Groundwork to launch its community funding scheme, which sees grants of £4,000, £2,000 and £1,000 raised from carrier bag sales in Tesco stores awarded to local community projects.
Three groups in every Tesco region have been shortlisted to receive the cash award and shoppers are being invited to head along to Tesco stores to vote for who they think should take away the top grant.
Cardiff Youth Council is one of the groups on the shortlist and know that young people are facing an unprecedented future with the rise of multiple issues that generations before have not had to contend with.
This can be seen in the increase of social media platforms and on-line news portals constantly delivering things such as fake news & biased writing through echo chambers & filter bubbles. Emotional manipulation & division through the constant barrage of ‘us vs them’ & hate speech.
No wonder it is difficult to navigate this modern world of the internet.
Cardiff Youth Council would like to work with its members and young people, from across the community, to deliver a programme of digital citizenship which will help children and young people
• Understand some of the challenges the internet can present to them
• Challenge and question the information they may see on the internet
• identify fake and biased news
• build resilience and critical-thinking skills to help judge online content
• Understand the power that the internet has in shaping people’s attitudes towards one another
• Realise the difference between online hate speech and free speech
The idea is that young people will deliver the training themselves and the challenge will be to work in a coordinated way to give young people the power to deliver this programme to a comprehensive range of schools, youth clubs and other organisations who work with children and young people, ensuring that the reach is as wide as possible.
Voting is open in all Tesco stores in November and December and customers will cast their vote using a token given to them at the check-out in store each time they shop.
Tesco’s Bags of Help project has already delivered over £60 million to more than 18,000 projects across Britain. Tesco customers get the chance to vote for three different groups every time they shop. Every other month, when votes are collected, three groups in each of Tesco’s regions will be awarded funding.
Alec Brown, Head of Community at Tesco, said:
“Bags of Help has been a fantastic success and we’ve been overwhelmed by the response from customers. It’s such a special scheme because it’s local people who decide how the money will be spent in their community. There are some fantastic projects on the shortlists and we can’t wait to see these come to life in hundreds of communities.”
Groundwork’s National Chief Executive, Graham Duxbury, said:
“Bags of Help continues to enable local communities up and down Britain to improve the local spaces and places that matter to them. The diversity of projects that are being funded shows that local communities have a passion to create something great in their area. We are pleased to be able to be a part of the journey and provide support and encouragement to help local communities thrive.”
Funding is available to community groups and charities looking to fund local projects that bring benefits to communities. Anyone can nominate a project and organisations can apply online. To find out more visit www.tesco.com/bagsofhelp.