Charlie was shortlisted for Young Leader of the Year at Manchester City Councils Youth Buzz Awards.
Charlie is 14 years old and is a Senior Club member at HideOut Youth Zone. He has been attending HideOut for over two years.
Charlie is passionate about sports and regularly engages in physical activity at the Youth Zone. He is part of HideOut’s Football team.
Charlie has taken advantage of opportunities at HideOut to develop his confidence, leadership skills and strengthen his future opportunities.
In 2022, Charlie committed to attending a six-week training programme to become a Young Leader at HideOut.
A Young Leader is a volunteer role which supports the Youth Work team in the delivery of sessions.
Young Leaders act as role models to other young people within the Youth Zone.
The Young Leader programme upskills young people in areas such as communication skills, equality and inclusion, safeguarding, boundaries, planning and delivery.
Since September, Charlie completed more than 45 hours of volunteer work and has since signed up to become a permanent part of the Young Leader team.
Charlie is keen to develop himself in community work and sports and has put himself forward for additional sessions to support and take the lead in running sport competitions and tournaments for Junior members to increase their engagement.
Charlie finds formal classroom learning difficult but has fully applied himself to achieve a Level 2 AQA Unit Award in Youth Leadership.
Charlie was also successful in gaining a place on the Raheem Sterling Broadcast Academy (led by Patron, Raheem Sterling Foundation in partnership with TalkSport). The Broadcast Academy is a bi-monthly session where young people plan, record and produce their own sporting podcasts. Young people have had the opportunity to interview sporting heroes such as former Manchester City Player, Nedum Onuoha.
Charlie has pushed himself to engage with the project and has attended sessions fully prepared with research and insight into topics.
Charlie consistently pushes himself to develop his confidence. At HideOut’s annual Patrons Dinner, he challenged himself to represent HideOut to visitors he didn’t know and lead tours to guests.
We have seen Charlie develop not just as a volunteer and a Young Leader, but as a young person. He has shown commitment, passion and loads of enthusiasm.
In 2023, Charlie was nominated by HideOut in Manchester City Council’s Youth Buzz Awards (an annual event which spotlights and celebrate Manchester’s extraordinary young people who help make a difference to their communities).
Charlie was shortlisted to the final three with the Young Leader of the Year category.
“I didn’t expect to be nominated, never mind shortlisted. Thank you to HideOut for putting me forward, and to the Youth Council for putting me through to the final three. I had a good time at the event, it was a fun night!”
