Kids Company wins grant of £12,723,336

Kids Company wins grant of £12,723,336
to help London’s most vulnerable young people

Kids Company celebrates the government’s announcement to award the charity a grant of £12,723,336. The money from the Department of Children, Schools and Families, allocated
over 3 years, is restricted to being spent on 400 of the most vulnerable young people, aged 14 upwards, who present complex disturbances.

As the majority of our clients are children directly asking for help, we face a unique problem in accessing money from statutory sources. Kids Company will need to continue to raise £4 million annually. This income will support the other 11,500 under 14-year-olds who use our therapeutic and social work services within 33 schools, and at our two street level centres. We are very grateful to the government, and for the generosity and support of the public and media in recognising the need and the pioneering work we do. This support has enabled us to work with profoundly disadvantaged communities, where some children are exposed to breathtaking levels of abuse and neglect each day. This exposure to such misery and tragedy might have paralysed us as an organization, yet – every day – we are inspired by the courage and dignity of the children we work with, and the extraordinary generosity and empathy of the public.

Throughout our discussions and communications with the government, we were sustained in the knowledge that large numbers of opinion formers, professionals and workers championed our cause; this acknowledgement and kindness made such a difference. Kids Company, in partnership with the government, will create a Centre of Excellence in order to develop the most effective strategies in reducing violence. The Centre will help young people exposed to abuse to manage their behaviours and emotions more appropriately. I just want you to know that filling in the application for this grant took some 600 hours and generated 2 fat books! We were being considered alongside 90 other organizations and we were one of the 5 that received government support.

Had the money not come through, I was going to do a striptease in Parliament; you’ve been spared!!!

With love and gratitude,

Camila Batmanghelidjh

Further enquiries: 0207 940 0151