School students from throughout Scotland have secured a total of £200,000 for their communities’ efforts tackling the far-reaching impacts of Covid-19.

The 50 successful ‘Your Community Fund’ submissions will each receive £4000 from The Wood Foundation. The local charities, represented by teams of young people through creative digital packages, address social issues including food poverty, social isolation, homelessness, alongside physical and mental health.

Sir Ian Wood, Chairman of The Wood Foundation, said:

“Your Community Fund had to be put together very quickly to support the disruption to our YPI programme in a large number of schools and I congratulate The Wood Foundation staff on the great work they’ve done.

“It’s clear the young people have really enjoyed the role they can play to help the world outside their front door while they’ve had to remain at home.

“Many of the submissions were really very impressive. It was great to see how much young people cared about their causes and the different ways they told the charities stories and the difference the money would make to them.”

Your Community Fund is an adaptation of The Wood Foundation’s Youth and Philanthropy Initiative (YPI) and was offered as an opportunity to schools who could not complete their planned programme of activity due to school closures. More than 90 submissions were received from the length and breadth of the country.

Jonathan Christie, Deputy UK Director at The Wood Foundation, said:

“Empowering #generationchange at a generation-defining time was really important to us and we knew we had to adapt quickly in order to do this in a meaningful way. We wanted to support Scotland’s communities in a way that allowed young people to retain the delegated responsibility which is the central to our YPI programme. Your Community Fund gave them a platform to advocate and create, applying their research, remote teamworking, and skills to a real-world context.

“Our close partnerships with schools have been key in the success of securing these submissions. Because of these efforts funds can now be granted to organisations that young people passionately believe need it most in their local areas to tackle the far-reaching impacts on coronavirus.”

The funds will be sent to charities in the coming weeks.

YPI will return to schools after the summer holidays with a number of key adaptations, informed by the Your Community Fund process, put in place to ensure the opportunity for young people to make a difference in their communities while developing a host of skills can continue during periods of blended learning and social distancing.

YPI was introduced to Scotland by The Wood Foundation in 2008. The programme has granted more than £4.5m to charities and engaged 200,000 young people in each of the country’s 32 local authorities.