Director of Blueprint Youth UK doing skywalk over Spurs

Kirsty Smith, one of the directors of Blueprint Youth UK, is doing a fundraiser for the organisation.

Blueprint Youth UK is a non-profit organisation and it was founded in 2011.

Kirsty joined in 2012 as a young person.

Kirsty heard about them through a friend of hers, and joined them because growing up she had a lot of difficult issues going on. She just needed a bit of support so she went into one of their youth clubs that they ran.

Shortly after being a young person a few months, I believe I became a trustee And then in 2016, I became a director and have been there ever since. So I've been a director for eight years, but a member of the board for 13 years.

Kirsty had a lot of stuff going in her personal life. A lot of difficulties at home, which led to emotional challenges, mental health and frustration that that she struggled to deal with.

I didn't always go about it in the right way but then finding an organisation where I felt like I belonged and was heard and people were listening to me and before Blueprint I felt unworthy. I felt more understood and more heard and had a sense of belonging and I was 16, nearly 17 by this point, when I joined and I think like your teenage years, especially between 16 and 18 between like 15, 16, 17, 18 where you're not really a child anymore, but you're not an adult, it was quite difficult to navigate even even when you have got other personal issues and stuff going on. They can be difficult anyway and obviously I did have other stuff going on, and there's a lot of research into it and stuff and with my degree I learned more into it but there's a there's a big emphasis at that age as a sense of belonging. So I think joining an organisation where I felt like I belonged, I was listened to, I was heard, I was valued. My voice was important in so during the early days.

And I also think like 'Yes, I do have a disability', but from the beginning of my Blueprint journey it was your just a normal young person. I don't really like to be like 'Oh, I'm doing this abseil and I've got cerebral palsy.' Like, no, I'm just doing it even even though I've got cerebral palsy. That shouldn't be the reason why this abseil was amazing is an incredible thing to do. It's an incredible thing to do anyway, it was just okay, you're just a normal person just doing what other young people are doing like obviously there'd be conversations on certain trips and certain things we were doing and be like are you going to be okay to do that or let us know what you need.

From then on i just felt really passionate about the organization. They gave me a chance when a lot of people didn't. And it's just grown from there, really. It's about giving back now for me, I think.

Kirsty [left] with Eddie, promoting the skywalk for Bluepoint Youth UK.

The charity offers a coaching service for young people aged 18 to 25 from all backgrounds but primarily for those living in areas of deprivation. Kirsty mentions;

Along the areas of West Sussex and the south coast that are actually quite a few areas of deprivation so there's a lot of wards of deprivation and we work with young people from all those wards. But it's primarily young people that live in those areas and we offer them support with various various different things that they come to coaching And that can be mental health, that could be job goals that could be like things they want to achieve in their life that could be getting a new job; we've had a few young parents come in and also had a lot of people come with mental health. Some people need support and advice in their relationships with by family, friends and partners and there's lots of different reasons really but there's ones that stand out the most at the minute.

It's a reflective model and it's about them like having their own goal or their own thing that they want to achieve and then make a little plan for it doing it and then reflecting on. it's about six sessions we offer per young person. And the last couple of years we've invited them young people back for a second round as well if they wanted it.

When thinking of projects to do to raise funds, they had a few plans bubbling up, such as skydives originally.

We as directors we basically had to come up or wanted to come up with a couple of… fundraising activities was going to do a skydive. But that's actually quite costly. So we are still planning on doing the skydive, but that will be later in the year. Maybe beginning of next year but I'm not quite sure when, but we are still planning on doing a skydive at one point. And then… we had a look at… abseiling from or doing the drop from the i360 in Brighton, but then there was issues around whether that was still going to be around and because they've had some administrative issues and stuff so And then… we were kind of looking into places where you could do skywalking. And one of them was the Tottenham Hotspur Skywalk and I was like, yeah, we'll do that. And then I looked and you could do the Skywalk and have sail off the edge. So I was like, yeah, we'll do that.

When talking further about the fundraise, she also mentioned that their original target was £500 and managed to raise that in a few days.

So we then upped the target to a thousand pounds and we've already pretty much there. I think we've got £940 so far so Yeah, so I'm just like… want to raise as much as possible as finding funding and stuff like that can be quite difficult at the moment obviously we're probably finding all the time but um the third sector is definitely strained at the moment.

She is doing this on the 21st of February. with another director Eddie.

So me and my friend Shannon, who is now a former director, we did the Spinmaker first, then we all did the O2 climb along with Eddie so it was kind of trying to do one better than the Spinmaker and also doing one better than the O2 and obviously this [the Spurs skywalk] is higher than that and it's a combines both the o2 climb bit and the absail so yeah it's just kind of 'How can you top that' really so then the only way we can top this one, I think, will be a skydive, and that's me with Eddie doing this this time.

The money raised will go towards their coaching sessions for young people and to go towards like the running the running of the organization.

According to Kirsty, some charities…

they want to tick boxes and i understand ticking boxes is ways of getting funding and stuff like that but that's not a thing for us like okay if you are disabled okay we're not going to even if you're sat there in a wheelchair we're not going to necessarily say that you're disabled till you tell us if you're… LGBT, unless you tell us we're not going to know do you know what i mean we're not going to like it's all like self i think that's important because I think people should be able to tell people as much of their story and their backstory or as much about them as they want to and that should never there should never be Not exploited, that's not the right word, but that should never be used as a way to get funding or used as a way to promote something. I think if people are comfortable in telling you their story that's fine But it should just be like, well, we're supporting these young people with these issues, et cetera, et cetera, or with these difficulties or these are the ways that we support And I think that's a really important part of our ethos and the way we run in our core values and beliefs as an organisation And I think that's what's kept me involved for so long and I'm still being a director and still like doing all these fundraising activities and still speaking about it and having these conversations and wanting to get people more involved and things like that really.

If you wish to help them out, here's the link to find out more, and maybe donate! https://www.gofundme.com/f/dare-to-drop-challenge

NOTE: since this write up,  the fundraiser is now at £1,235 and they have a updated target of £1,500.