Tall Ships Youth Trust – Voyage Feedback
The Education and Charities Committee awarded the Tall Ships Youth Trust a grant of £20,000 for 2023-24 as part of a very long-standing and important relationship between the two organisations. TSYT has sent the Company some feedback and statistics on the voyages that the Shipwrights helped to fund and it can be found here.
The accomanying letter included the following from TSYT CEO, Alastair Floyd:
Tall Ships Youth Trust (TSYT) are very grateful to have received a grant of £20,000 in July 2023 from the Worshipful Company of Shipwrights. I’m writing today with an update on our activities since then, which I hope you and the members will find interesting. I am pleased to confirm that the grant has been fully utilised, enabling 160 young people to participate in a voyage of Exploration, by providing bursary support to reduce the financial commitment needed from them to participate.
You may recall that the Trust introduced its innovative three-voyage programme of Exploration, Empowerment and Leadership in February 2023, and since then, 1203 young people have voyaged with us. This is the highest number of young people taken on the Challenger vessels in one year since they were acquired in 2008. 80% of the young people supported were from disadvantaged backgrounds, 41% were female and 24% identified as being part of the global majority.
During 2023-24 we ran over 80 Exploration voyages, 11 Empowerment voyages and our first Leadership voyage was piloted in January 2024. As the programme evolves, the feedback we receive from our young people and their decision makers is being used to shape our delivery model, as this will ensure the best possible outcomes are achieved for those taking part.
We have now entered the second year of the programme, and plan to run 78 Exploration voyages, 18 Empowerment voyages, and 12 Leadership voyages this year. We will also be operating voyages out of Plymouth, Swansea, Whitehaven, Belfast, Greenock, Newcastle, Ipswich, and Portsmouth as part of our strategy to increase our reach by making our voyages more accessible to those in areas of high deprivation through the establishment of reginal hubs, and by voyaging throughout all 12 months of the year (as opposed to the traditional sailing season).
We are also developing industry partnerships across the UK to enable our young people to get exposure to different opportunities across the sector, leading to pathways to employment, placements and apprenticeships in sectors that connect to the marine environment, engineering, or youth work. This includes shipyard visits at Harland Wolff and Babcock.
