Yellow Door is the name of Canvey Island’s youth project. The project can be found through a bright yellow door, in a cheerful, colourful building on Poplar Road. The youth project has been on this site since 2017 providing a range of information, support, activities, education and interventions to young people on the Island.
Yellow Door is an independent charity working with young people aged 11 to 25. We support Yellow Door through our community grant fund. We visited the project on a Monday evening in June – which is sports club – just as the heavens opened! We needn’t have worried though as the range of activities on offer inside more than made up for rain stopping play outside! Young people were playing pool, table football, chess and even using a punch bag in the garden space. There was also a table of craft activities for those who wanted to awaken their creative side.
Each day, Yellow Door offers something different for the young people of Canvey Island. The activities are free and for the majority of them young people can just turn up and join in. There is also the opportunity for young people to get more direct support. This could be by joining the young volunteer programme and receiving training to become a volunteer at the project, or signing up to the counselling or mentoring on offer. The project has just taken on one of its young volunteers as a youth work apprentice, helping her get started in a career in youth work.
While the project is based in a fantastic space this doesn’t stop the youth workers getting out and about for outreach work. The team regularly visit Waterside Skate Park and 1st Avenue, engaging and supporting young people where they already hang out. It was great seeing the young people enjoying themselves and having fun, there was a great rapport between everyone attending.
The fact the charity has been in existence, in one guise or another, for over 30 years is testament to its obvious strengths of bringing something fun, targeted and needed to the young people of Canvey Island.
