The National Lottery is required by law to set aside a percentage of sales for good causes. Heritage Lottery Fund hands out funds to heritage and arts. The other, the Big Lottery Fund sets aside money for community causes. In recent posts, we’ve discussed mental health, disability charities, and wildlife and environment. However, there are other important issues and one case has recently highlighted issues with youth crime. Now, an organisation offering medical training for London youth affected by crime recently received a lottery grant. Called StreetDoctors, young people in areas prone to violence will therefore learn what to do to save a friend’s life.
About the Medical Training for London Youth
With a £230k grant from the National Lottery Community Fund, medical professionals will now enter these communities. But with youth crime currently high, the ability to act to save a friend or family member in those critical moments is the difference between life and death. Such medical training for London Youth will include what to do in an emergency and how to help stem bleeding if somebody is losing a lot of blood. StreetDoctors includes nurses, paramedics and doctors. There are 2.8m million youths in London; but a shocking 3/4 of them live in areas of high instances of violent crime.
However, this training through the StreetDoctors hopes to save more lives in the future. 2018 saw 145 such sessions. Now, medical training for London youth through the scheme can expand in 2019 and beyond. In fact, StreetDoctors aims to deliver 300 in total over the next year, over double that of the 2018 total. It will bring on board youth offender teams and referral units for school pupils. Youth violence is a complex issue. While those who seek to stop it are doing their work, until this problem is challenged, charities try to improve survival chances of those caught up in violence.