Vhi partners with Irish Youth Foundation to launch the 2023 Vhi Health & Wellbeing Fund

Vhi has launched the third consecutive year of the Vhi Health & Wellbeing Fund with the aim of supporting projects within the community that strengthen resilience in young people and help them manage anxiety.

Established in 2020 in partnership with the Irish Youth Foundation (IYF), the Fund is dedicated to enhancing the health and wellbeing of young people.

The emphasis this year continues to be on supporting programmes focused on early intervention and prevention for young people. It is open to applications from non-profit and charitable organisations that work directly with young people or with adults who surround them. Grants of €5,000 and €10,000 will be available through the fund.

Speaking at the launch, Brian Walsh, CEO, Vhi Group, said: “At Vhi, our purpose is to help our customers live longer, stronger, healthier lives but we also want to help our local communities too. That’s why we’re delighted to launch the third consecutive year of the Vhi Health and Wellbeing Fund.

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“Its impact to date has been truly inspiring with every young person supported by the fund over the last two years gaining the opportunity to better understand how to manage their own health and wellbeing while also developing skills to help them navigate feelings of anxiety when they face them. I’d encourage all eligible organisations to apply for the fund”, Walsh said.

Impact to date

Since the fund first opened for applications in 2021, 22 grassroots projects have been supported.

More than 4,000 young people have been directly impacted through one-to-one project work undertaken by the organisations entering the Fund, with just under 200,000 young people indirectly benefitting from the initiative.

Community groups benefiting

One of the organisations to benefit from the Vhi Health & Wellbeing Fund is Bradóg Youth Services in Dublin’s north inner city. This non-profit, community-based organisation provides out-of-school, personal and social development programmes to young people in the area.

Through its support, Bradóg was able to roll out and extend its Vibes programme, a mental health initiative to help young people from disadvantaged areas to connect and contribute.

Following the COVID-19 pandemic, a lot of Bradóg service users felt disconnected from their peers and their communities. The Vibes programme has since helped them reconnect with others and surround them with a system of support to fuel their personal growth.

Speaking about the impact of the programme, Maria O’Donoghue, Youth Leader at Bradóg Regional Youth Service said: “We were delighted to receive the funding last year from Vhi. With the funding we were able to extend the reach of our Vibes programme, a mental health initiative designed to support young people, in our area. It’s been really rewarding to see how well the young people have responded to the focus on enhancing their mental health through the development of skills that are now enabling them to manage their anxiety and challenges they face day to day in a controlled way.”

Other winning projects that have received funding include a project in Galway that offers support to young people with foster care experience who are struggling with mental health and anxiety to enable them to access courses and training opportunities.

In West Cork young people were taught to surf over the course of eight weeks, and in doing so build their confidence and strength and, in Kilkenny, a wellbeing programme brought young people out into nature for a combination of forest therapy and mentoring to resource them with lifelong wellbeing and resilience practices.

Fund open to applicants

With the current generation of young people dealing with so many challenges over the last couple of years, projects supported by the Vhi Health and Wellbeing Fund are vital in helping them to remain resilient and move ahead with confidence.

Lucy Masterson, CEO, Irish Youth Foundation, said: “IYF are committed to prioritising health and wellbeing programmes for young people, and so we are delighted that partnering with Vhi has given us another avenue to reach young people and to support them to improve their resilience and manage anxiety.

“From a TikTok campaign highlighting mental health services that reached over 180,000 young people to a specific programme to help manage the anxiety of young people living in direct provision, the impact of the winning projects over the last year has been inspiring. I look forward to seeing similar results with this year’s Fund and would encourage all organisations working in the youth sector to apply,” she added.

The Vhi Health & Wellbeing Fund is now open to not-for-profit or charitable organisations that are seeking to deliver projects dedicated to supporting the resilience of young people aged 12-25 years old in the six locations where Vhi have operations - Cork, Donegal, Dublin, Galway, Kilkenny and Limerick.

For more information, or to apply visit www.iyf.ie/grants