Youth Crew

RNSA YOUTH CREW

Our wonderful friends at Greenwich Hospital and the Royal Naval Sailing Association (RNSA) are delighted to announce the launch of an exciting new project that will provide free sailing opportunities for children of families of personnel serving in the Royal Navy, Royal Marines and Royal Fleet Auxiliary.  The RNSA, the charity that provides the sport of sailing for the Navy, funded by Greenwich Hospital will be offering free RYA start sailing weeks delivered through the Andrew Simpson Foundation (ASF) across the UK.  This is a super exciting chance to support Service families and introduce them to the fun and many benefits of sailing. 

The dedicated courses start this Easter and the aim is to get hundreds of 11-17 year olds sailing in 2024 and beyond.  They will be doing everything they can to make these weeks fully accessible and inclusive with no previous experience needed. The project will include a water safety element to help develop confidence for those less well versed with the sea!  The RNSA team will be reaching out to explain the offer, help with the booking process and guide applicants through the process.  Enquiries should be directed to youthsailing@rnsa.org.uk  and the website will be available for bookings from early March (www.rnsayouthcrew.org.uk).  Please do get in touch as sailing really is fun and does provide a great vehicle for building a whole range of skills in young people as well as enhancing fitness and well-being.   We will also be looking at follow on pathways to help young people take up ‘Sailing for Life’.

Other Life Chances

Tech Camp

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Forces Employment Charity

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The BIG Debate

We live in a world where the best jobs and best opportunities go to the people who are most articulate, the people who are best at putting their point across. So, learning to debate can be incredibly valuable for young people.

Frequent moves can disrupt a child’s social support network and cause feelings of isolation, as they may have to often adjust to new environments, schools, and peer groups. This can lead to a sense of disconnection and loneliness, as the child may struggle to establish meaningful relationships in their new community.

So, recognising the advantages of debate training and the sometimes-isolated situation for naval children, we at the Naval Children’s Charity, working in partnership with veterans charity Forward Assist and educational charity Parallel Histories, created a new debating programme. A programme for young people from naval families who would both benefit from debate training and enjoy getting to know and sharing experiences with other young people from naval families located in different parts of the country or abroad.

Over a series of online workshops, our young people learnt many valuable skills to take forward in life. They were then invited to take part in a final debate in London, the topic in question? Discuss the Pros and Cons of being a Naval Child.

Joshua Hillis, Deputy Editor of Parallel Histories commented:

‘They were brilliant. They were articulate and debating in a way that really, we’d hope adults would debate, they were engaging respectfully with each other but robustly, and relating their own experiences in an emotionally mature way. The confidence and speaking skills they brought to it was amazing and the ability to engage with questions coming from Ministers and senior figures and also doing that in front of a camera with the lights on them. That was impressive.’

Many thanks to the team at Parallel Histories for all the fantastic work they put into giving our young people a wonderful experience and some fantastic life skills to take forward.

 

Songs for Naval Children by Naval Children

Last summer we teamed up with Never Such Innocence, the fantastic children’s charity that provide tools for young people to reflect on the realities of war and conflict by nurturing them through the arts.

As a collective, we invited naval children to take part in a series of virtual song writing workshops with singer-songwriter Otto. The purpose was to write a song by naval children, for naval children. It soon became apparent during these workshops that a second song was forming, one specifically for the Submariner families.

After hours of writing, both songs were ready to be recorded. We then invited the young people to join us in London to record the songs at Hackney Studios, allowing a little extra time to see some of the sights!

Katie Salarie, CEO of Never Such Innocence commented on the day of recording:

‘It was amazing just watching nothing become a full entire song. What is great about it, it’s children from across the UK, they can come on zoom, have this experience, get to know one another, and then get to meet. It’s such a special opportunity for them. As they move to different posts, they may even see these friends again. That’s what makes it so special, music and the arts bringing people together.’

The recordings were a fantastic success, and we are over the moon with the finished products that our young people created from scratch. The are both below.

The ‘Navy Song’ and the ‘Submariners Sea Shanty’. We hope that you enjoy listening to them as much as we enjoyed watching them being created!

 

Polly’s PINK Marathon

Polly Florence decided to do a PINK “Toddlerthlon” to raise lots of pennies for us, as we help to support her and her family in the challenges they face due to Polly’s medical conditions. Polly’s “Toddlerthlon” was a huge challenge, 1 mile walk, 1.5 mile cycle and a whole 1 hour swimming! We are so pleased to say that Polly SMASHED IT!! She also smashed her target of £650 and raised a WHOPPING £1,560!!
 
Polly’s mum said “We cannot thank the Naval Children’s Charity enough for the support and guidance they have given us. We feel very lucky to be part of the Navy community and have access to such a fantastic charity. We are beyond proud of how resilient and brave Polly is, this shone through during her challenge and she absolutely smashed it! We cannot wait to come up with some more cool fundraising ideas to help the Naval Children’s Charity to continue to support families just like ours. Polly was asked why she was doing her challenge and who for, her response was “for the Naval Children’s Charity” because they look after me” 
 
Thank you so very much Polly, you are an absolute SUPERSTAR!!!