Family Mosaic's Youth Academy made its first bursary award last month to Alishia Webbe Fergusson a 19 year old resident of Eleanor Close, N.London.

Alisha was awarded £870 after applying for money to help with the cost of relocating to Cardiff following her acceptance to study for a BA in Food, Science and Technology.

Resident actively involved
Alishia has been an exemplary young resident and has been involved with Family Mosaic for a number of years.  It all started a few years ago when Alishia and her friends attended that I organised on her estate.  At the event residents had the opportunity to talk to Family Mosaic about the lack of facilities for young people on the estate. 

As part of a youth engagement project a group of young people on the estate came together and put forward a proposal for a go karting trip   

From that first involvement, Alishia suggested setting up a Youth Forum – involving young people across London and Essex. She says: “We decided to hold a Youth Conference at the O2 Arena to launch the Forum.

More than 100 people took part in workshops, learned about street dance and got to ask FM's senior managers some difficult questions. The Forum grew from that and has now become the Youth Academy Forum.”

As a reward for her volunteer work, Alishia was given vouchers which she chose to spend on a swimming instructor’s course. Now a fully qualified teaching assistant, she’s been coaching children at Tottenham Green Leisure centre. And, through the p2w programme, Alishia was able to do training courses in health and safety and interview techniques.

All of this has given Alishia the confidence to go and study for a degree in  Wales and  she can still check out what the Youth Academy gets up to while she is away by visiting our facebook page.