UK’s youth heritage programme wins new government funding

The UK Government has earmarked almost £1.3m (US$1.7m, €1.5m) towards a scheme that aims to involve young people in heritage, through a new grant to the National Lottery Heritage Fund’s “Kick the Dust” programme.

Kick the Dust is a programme of a dozen large scale projects running across the UK, started in 2016, intended to help make heritage relevant to young people aged 11 to 25. It was launched with an original £10m (US$13m, €11.8m) investment, which was allocated to the projects by a team of 15 young people called the Dustkickers.

Projects in the Kick the Dust programme include “Keeping it Wild” with the London Wildlife Trust, Ignite Yorkshire, and Scotland 365 with National Museums Scotland.

The money is part of a new £7m (US$9.1m, €8.3m) Youth Accelerator Fund from the government’s Department of Digital, Culture, Media & Sport (DCMS), which has been set up to address urgent needs in the youth sector.

Other institutions to benefit from the funding are Sport England, Arts Council England, the British Film Institute, and UK Youth, while more than £2m (US$2.6m, €2.4m) of the fund will go towards establishing new local partnerships across the UK to coordinate and sustain local youth activities.

“This fantastic additional investment will build on the already strong partnerships that are flourishing through our Kick the Dust programme,” said Eilish McGuinness, executive director, business delivery at The National Lottery Heritage Fund. “The collaboration we’re seeing through the Youth Accelerator Fund shows a really joined-up approach across all the activities that, together, we know young people can benefit from.”