Young People Design JLGB's New Performance Kitemark

A brand new youth empowerment framework has been rolled out across JLGB groups across the country. The ‘SURGE Kitemark’ (which stands for: Sharing Uniting Retaining Growing and Empowering) has been created by members of JLGB’s National Youth Forum of youth representatives called ‘The Voice’.

Over many years the JLGB has done more and more to put young people at the centre of everything we do, not just with the activities but also with all aspects of the planning of local groups, events and camps.

The JLGB Voice committee created the kitemark as a framework to evermore empower young people and to recognise and celebrate the successes of local JLGB groups as well as paying tribute and acknowledging the incredibly hard work undertaken by the adult, student and youth volunteer teams who run them each week.

The SURGE Kitemark awards credits and rewards in the 5 SURGE proof categories:

1. Sharing – for sharing ideas, programmes and best practice of local groups nationally for all of JLGB to benefit from
2. Uniting – by working and twinning with local, regional and national JLGB groups across the country and working together to make JLGB one family
3. Retaining – by ensuring all members are happy and getting what they deserve from their local JLGB group, regional event or national camp and doing all they can when issues arise to help keep those young people and their parents active and engaged in JLGB activities
4. Growing – to be local ambassadors for growth and spreading the word about all that JLGB has to offer. After all, who better than young people to convince their friends to take part in all that JLGB has to offer!
5. Empowering – ensuring that young people are at the heart of shared young and adult decision making and recognising how local JLGB groups thrive when everyone can contribute to the success of THEIR JLGB.

When a local group reaches the kitemark standard they will receive a reward, which will be a monetary prize for the local group to spend on an outing or bringing in an outside team. Scores will also contribute to the overall best group prize at the National JLGB Awards each year.

Outgoing Co-chairs of the Voice, Alex Diamond and Katy Diamond, who worked on the kitemark during their term said:

“The SURGE Kitemark will improve the standard of local groups so each member from Glasgow to Kingston has an equally amazing experience with JLGB. As well as this, it will encourage our local groups to reach new heights to ensure the development of each group and the growth of JLGB.”

Modern technology and online systems created by JLGB are helping with the recording and calculating of kitemark achievements across groups. They are also bringing local groups closer together by making it possible for group leaders to share and collaborate on activities and projects to ensure that local activity has national impact. This has been shown only recently, through JLGB weekly groups being awarded Mitzvah Day’s Biggest Impact Award, where local action had major national impact.