Recently someone asked me why self-belief is the main aim of BRIT? The focus of BRIT is on young people, 16 – 25 years of age with a physical or mental disability, deprivation, injury, our wounded and young carers. BRIT believes that regaining self-belief is the first step in helping to inspire and develop aspirations for their life.
For many young people facing adversity, coping with their situation can put them in a dark place from which they see no way out leaving them at high risk of self-harm, depression and even suicide. Thousands of our young people face falling through gaps. These vulnerable young people are more likely to end up living life on the margins of society, often ending up unemployed and requiring long-term support, and never truly realizing their potential and aspirations. BRIT believes that it is our role to support those young people who cannot see a way out.
Self-belief empowers young people to make the most of their future. You can see the change in a young person’s face, even their body language when they start building their self-belief and recognize that they can have a positive future. Engendering self-belief in our young people is our goal at BRIT.
We cannot do this alone, though, and the BRIT ethos means that we partner with other charities. BRIT is not trying to take the place of existing charities, instead we recognize that they know their young people and will identity those that are in a dark place and can be helped by attending a BRIT residential course. This is why to date, over 30 charity CEOs have stepped forward as BRIT Advisors and support the need for BRIT and the BRIT Centre.
The course is the first step to developing self-belief. Whilst at the Centre, the young person will spend time with an inspirational mentor, counsellors and other staff engaged in a variety of positive activities. Our BRIT mentors are national figures that have the inspiring qualities to capture the attention and focus of these young people. Spending one-on-one quality time with them is valuable. One of the facets of BRIT that is unique is that even after the young person leaves the Centre they are still connected and receive help on their journey to self-belief.
I feel strongly that BRIT operates in such a way that charities that partner with us do not incur costs. Given our tough economic times I do not want funds to be a barrier to a charity sending their young person for a course. Neither does BRIT want to compete against charities for funding. This is all part of the ethos that makes BRIT unique. We are innovative and visionary in our approach and will bring together charities, national inspirational figures and our young people in a location to begin the process of developing self-belief.
Positive self-belief is incredibly empowering, helping our young people to grow and do things they previously thought impossible. The aim of BRIT is to help our young people facing difficult situations to develop their self-belief, and thereby realize their aspirations.
What sets us apart is that we believe that we can build BRIT with the support of 2000 businesses (1000 pledging £10,000 and 1000 pledging £5000) pledging their support and spreading their support over 2011 and 2012 to allow them to support other charities as well. BRIT does not have a donate button on the website, will not ask the public for funding and nor will we ask the public to engage in fundraising activities such as events, auctions and sponsorship challenges. We will continue to champion charities and we will build the Centre and we will deliver self-belief.
Phil