A group of Salford mums who launched an all-inclusive youth club, have won funding to keep it open after initial financial struggles.
Sarah Crawshaw, 44, along with friends Keri Muldoon, Liza Broome and Erika Rusanovaite, launched Diversity Youth Club in Lower Broughton back in June, but have been struggling with funding in recent weeks.
Charging only £1.50 for attendees, the mums have been ploughing their own money in to upkeep the ‘safe space’ afloat.
Sarah, whose 14-year-old daughter attends the group, said: “I’ve got a little girl who is a wheelchair user, she’s got cerebral palsy and I tried to get her into a quiet few youth clubs around the area. But she wasn’t able to attend an able-bodied youth club.
“So we wanted to have a space where kids can just be kids, with no judgments, just for parents who are similar situations so that’s why we just decided to do it all together ourselves instead.”
The group who Sarah has described as ‘just regular mums’, offer activities for their members including arts and crafts, jigsaw puzzles. karaoke, baking, table tennis and even TikTok video creation.
“Otherwise they’re just at home, isolated, they don’t go anywhere because people judge them,” said Sarah.
“If they didn’t have this youth club on a Thursday, there’s this four hours of free time that I think they would be sat at home isolated and frustrated like my daughter was.
“I think that is great that she can come to a safe space where I know she is safe and I know her friends are safe and they can like do their TikToks, dance, art and crafts just with no worry.
“I can’t psychically carry her anymore, she’s 14 and she just wants a space with her friends to do normal teenage stuff.”
Their aim is to give the children somewhere they can engage with others in a safe environment. However due to the size of the room, Diversity Youth has only been able to host 15 members and there are more on a waitlist.
This is why the concerned organisers attended an event run by Business Group Salford, to talk about their special community in a bid to win £1000 of funding.
Following a pitch from Sarah, who has never done any public speaking before, they were granted the money to keep the group alive for at least another six months.
She said: “I was in shock, I’m just a regular mum, it’s out my comfort zone, I’ve never done anything like that before, never done any public speaking or anything.
“I just went for it and was like- do it for the kids. I need this funding for it to carry on. We have got rent till November but then I didn’t want it to be just pulled, because we’ve got 15 children who rely on us. So with this £1000, in the next six months we can breathe a bit easier.”
Diversity Youth meet every Thursday, at St Clements with St Matthias Lower Broughton from 4pm to 8pm. The sessions are for those aged five to 15 years old. For more information visit the Facebook page.
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