JLGB President Lord Levy rallies support for Youth Social Action

Thanks to our President The Lord Levy, the JLGB was honoured by the Speaker of the House, John Bercow MP with a special dinner at the State Rooms at Speaker's House, the Palace of Westminster. The focus of the evening was on expanding JLGB’s youth social action provision in line with the organisation’s #iwill campaign pledge to ‘lead the way in creating a step-change in empowering young people and benefitting communities through social action’. The evening saw a remarkable speech given by 19-year-old Jordana Price, who spoke about how JLGB has impacted on her life, developed her confidence and helped her to make good choices for her future.

Today's Jewish young people have the energy and enthusiasm to shape and change their world in innovative and exciting ways that simply weren't possible in previous generations. JLGB’s mission is to harness this potential and equip young people with leadership skills and give them character building opportunities to give back to society. Thanks to the support of our Patrons, alongside a current fundraising campaign, JLGB plans to engage over 15,000 young Jewish people in faith sensitive social action through evolve – JLGB’s unique youth volunteering and skills initiative.

The backbone of evolve is the digital platform which brings together all of the stakeholders involved in youth volunteering, which has been designed and built by JLGB and brought to life thanks to the generous support of the Maurice Wohl Charitable Foundation and the Pears Foundation.

JLGB President, The Lord Levy said: “For over 120 years, the JLGB has supported tens of thousands of young people in local Jewish communities across the UK. This wonderful organisation is on course to engage a further 15,000 more young people in youth social action over the next 5 years. It is vital that we secure access to national awards and programmes for all Jewish young people, particularly those in our community who have welfare needs, or physical or learning difficulties for whom these programmes can be life-changing”.

The Speaker John Bercow said: “JLGB is a magnificent cause, without which this wonderful array of character building and life-enhancing activities would not be able to take place. Thanks to the support of its Patrons, JLGB can hold up as examples young Jewish people who have been part of those activities and who will speak eloquently and movingly of their experiences.”

JLGB Youth Trustee, Jordana Price said: “What I love about JLGB as an organisation is that young people are not stereotyped, everyone has different interests and come from a range of backgrounds. We are from all parts of the country, with various social backgrounds and span the entire spectrum of the Jewish. JLGB is about identity, it creates a platform for shared values through fun, friendship, achievement and Jewish peoplehood. It encourages everyone to be the best possible version of themselves, and seeks to promote diversity and inclusion for all, supporting many young people with various physical and learning disabilities. Having an organisation that is inspiring and empowering young people towards a brighter tomorrow is more essential than ever before”.

 JLGB is privileged to have many Patrons, to find out who they are and how you can become one too, visit www.jlgb.org/patrons

To find out more about JLGB’s evolve – youth volunteering and skills initiative please visit www.jlgb.org/evolve

JLGB’s #iwill pledge

As proud partners of Step Up to Serve’s #iwill campaign, JLGB pledges to support young people from hard to reach communities to take part in meaningful youth social action projects;

• The JLGB will continue to expand its work to help to ensure young people from hard to reach and disadvantaged backgrounds can take part fully in meaningful and impactful social action that does not compromise their individual beliefs or values.
• JLGB's 'evolve' collective impact initiative for youth volunteering, social action and accreditation will continue to lead the way in creating a step-change in empowering young people and benefitting communities through social action.
• Through the evolve online passport and volunteering and skills matching system, we will continue to streamline the social action journey of awards, qualifications and opportunities, ensuring they are faith and culturally sensitive and accessible to all.
• We will work to support even more charities to be youth-friendly and accessible, developing and creating with them a range of age-appropriate and progressive opportunities for youth social action.
• We will aspire to do even more to increase youth participation in the decision making and design of volunteering opportunities, accredited courses and youth-led social action projects.
• We will further help schools and community groups to prioritise social action and volunteering, by supporting teachers and youth workers with practical resources and management tools through evolve, as well as provide on the ground character-building programmes through our partnerships with DofE, NCS and vInspired.
• Through JLGB’s #DoYourBit campaign we will actively encourage more adults to become volunteer leaders to help train, coach and mentor young people through character-building and social action programmes at local JLGB weekly groups across the UK.
• Finally, we pledge to work with a cross collaboration of partners to replicate our unique work, so that the expertise, learning and digital technology developed by JLGB through the evolve platform can help other faith communities, disadvantaged young people and the mainstream youth sector.