Small Grants 2021: Exploring Culture, Identity and Heritage

Launching in Black History Month as recognition of the long-standing history, contributions and achievements of Black British, Caribbean and African people in the borough, the grant aims to bring together local communities through an exploration of history and diversity in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea. We want to see how the highly diverse communities in Kensington and Chelsea explore and express their culture, identity and heritage in new and innovative projects!

We would like children and young people to lead these projects, to share knowledge and experiences about their communities.

Our first small grants programme in 2020 funded 12 exciting projects led by children and young people, including Carnival Village Trust, Chelsea Football Club Foundation and the Chelsea Youth Club. Children and young people benefitted from the grant by learning about different cultures, experiencing traditions and customs from around the world.

At Azza Supplementary School, children learned about Arabic and African cultural heritage and learned vocabulary relating to food and recipes through a series of lessons exploring cultural culinary traditions. “This project had a positive impact on our students and families’ mental wellbeing especially during this pandemic, by reducing the isolation and sharing one aspect of our culture, while staying at home”. – Mona Deyab, Azza Supplementary School

All you have to do is come up with a great idea for learning about the cultures, histories and diversity of local communities in Kensington and Chelsea. This could be through food, art, spoken word, history, music, children’s play, sport, photography, film, or any other activities.

Your project should take place between 1 January and 31 August 2022.

Decisions will be made by our grants panel, including local young people.

How to Apply

To apply your organisation will need to be a registered charity or community interest company that is a member of Young K&C, with a turnover under £1,000,000.

If your organisation is unregistered, you can still apply, but we will require your organisation to register as part of our grant conditions. We may also ask you to set aside some of your grant funding from us towards the cost of registration support.

Your organisation will be working with children and young people, aged up to 25 who live, work or study in Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea. Some of these young people will need to be able to represent your organisation and present your application to the grants panel on zoom or in person.

Young K&C may also visit your organisation, with the young people from our grant panel.

You can apply by completing the application form below and sending it by email to info@youngkandc.org.uk. Our next deadline is Monday 29 November for funding to start in January 2022.

If you wish to send a short video explaining what you want to do and why, you are welcome to send this to info@youngkandc.org.uk by WeTransfer or send us a link. The video is optional, but it does help the grant panel with their decisions.

The Rules

• Your organisation must be a registered charity or community interest company that is a member of Young K&C with turnover under £1,000,000. If your organisation is unregistered, you will be asked to register as part of our grant conditions.
• Your activities must take place in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea.
• Your activities must be for children and young people aged up to 25.
• All activities must take place between 1 January and 31 August 2022.
• We will ask your organisation to be represented by up to three local children and young people. These young people may be invited to attend an online or in person interview about your application.
• Your organisation will be asked to send a report at the end of your project explaining what different the project made and what the costs were.
• If the grant fund is over-subscribed, the panel will give priority to smaller organisations and those that are led by and work with under-represented groups.
• We will also take into consideration, whether your organisation has provided full monitoring data for previous funding streams from Young K&C.
• The decision of the grant panel is final.

What we won’t fund

• Unhealthy food or drinks (e.g. processed or junk foods)
• Screen-based games

You can find our Top Tips for writing funding applications at: Young K&C's Guide to Writing Better Funding Applications.

If you have questions or want further information about these grants, please contact info@youngkandc.org.uk