Love4Life is celebrating after being awarded almost £135,000 over 3 years in National Lottery Community funding for its Love4Life project supporting teenage girls across Leicester, Leicestershire and Derby. The charity, based in Loughborough, will use the cash to fund the development of the Love4Life team.

Love4Life has been running since 2008 and was set up in response to a growing concern about girls being groomed in and around Loughborough. The project was extended into Leicester in 2018 and Derby in 2019, and now empowers around 600 girls every year to make positive choices for their health, relationships and education.

Our team of youth workers, often supported by local volunteers, hold weekly group sessions in community centres where girls enjoy free activities whilst taking part in targeted sessions around the many issues they face in society today, such as online bullying and social anxiety caused by the lockdowns. The staff also provide workshops on general well-being and relationship and sex education in local secondary schools.  Girls who need a more intensive level of support are offered a course of individual coaching sessions. Love4Life aims to support vulnerable girls to increase confidence and self-esteem and to develop aspirations to lead a happy and healthy life. 

During the pandemic, the charity reacted quickly by developing comprehensive online support including care packages to help young people deal with the stress and isolation they were feeling. This ensured that every girl was able to access their ongoing support.

The new funding from The National Lottery Community Fund, which distributes money raised by National Lottery players for good causes and is the largest funder of community activity in the UK, will support Love4Life to build a stable financial base to develop its services into new areas to support even more young people.

At the same time, Love4Life will be able to develop their strong youth voice group to ensure that young people are at the heart of what they do, and that services continue to meet young people’s needs.

Last year The National Lottery Community Fund awarded over half a billion pounds (£588.2 million) of life-changing funding to communities across the UK and supported over 14,000 projects to turn their great ideas into reality. National Lottery players raise £36 million* each week for good causes throughout the UK.