[COMMUNITY] YOUTH OPPORTUNITY CARD SCHEME IS UNDERWAY IN CAMBRIDGESHIRE
Wednesday 26 Mar 2008
Teenagers in Cambridgeshire have started to receive debit cards giving them 40 pounds a month to spend on activities.
A total of 2,000 13- to 16-year-olds will be given Cambridgeshire County Council's g2g card, one of the first pilot youth opportunity cards to be tested in England.
The cards will be given to teenagers who are in care or on free school meals as part of the Department for Children, Schools and Families-backed pilot.
Simon Bates, project manager at the council, said: "The cards will enable young people who traditionally do less well at school to make positive lifestyle choices, which we hope will boost their confidence and help them do better in school."
Young people can use their g2g cards, which will work until March 2009, to pay for a wide range of services including dance lessons, horse riding classes, martial arts training and sporting activities. Other activities the card will help pay for include cinema tickets, music lessons and outdoor activities.
The teenagers can also hold money over from month to month to save up for bigger activities. They could also team up to pay for bigger events, added Bates. "The card allows the young people to be imaginative so they can club together to pay for a weekend residential learning windsurfing or fund a football tour," he said.
Connexions and youth service staff are distributing the cards to young people via schools and will offer advice on what they can do with the money.
"By getting Connexions and youth workers to give out the card, it creates an opportunity for them to talk to the young people about how the card works and signpost them to activities," explained Bates. "A lot of the time young people don't take part in things because no one said they could do those kind of things."
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