Who we are and our aims

The Kent Charities Group is a unique group of carefully selected, diverse, independent registered charities, all based in Kent and committed to improving the quality of life for residents throughout the county, through their individual causes. Whilst retaining their individual identities and diverse work, the Kent Charities Group epitomises the true ethos of partnership working.

We all rely solely on donations from the public to carry out our work so your interest and support is a vitally important way of helping local Kent Charities do what they do best across the county.

To make contact with Kent Charities group please email: L.Clayton@hikent.org.uk

Read below to find out about our work, then please consider how YOU could help us..

Kent Youth has two core aims set out within our widely consulted on guiding strategy 2008-2012 - 'so much for the past, what of the future':

1. Young People Learning and Leading: we create and deliver quality opportunities for children and young people, including targeted work with harder to reach young people. Our programmes are designed to enable young people to learn essential personal, social, workplace and life skills and progress towards independence and adulthood. We currently have three key projects; activeyouth (young people train to be Community Sports or Dance Leaders), me2 (young people train to support disabled young people achieve full inclusion) and me2you (young people take part in peer education and peer mentoring programmes, including BTEC Level 2 qualifications).

2. Better Clubs, Stronger Communities: we work to ensure children and young people have access to safe, quality, affordable spaces and opportunities which enable them to discover belief in themselves, young people can be valued, contributing members of their community. We currently support over 200 local youth groups with over 16 000 adult volunteers. We support these groups through a range of services including training for volunteers, activities for young people, model policies, CRB checks and field visits.

We achieve these aims through our core programmes, specific targeted projects and through positive influence on policy & planning groups. We have summarised our work here. We have available detailed briefings with case studies for each programme. Please contact us for them.

activeyouth: we enable young people aged 16plus to become ‘young volunteer community sports/dance leaders. The young volunteers receive 12 weeks training before undertaking community placements in which they develop new healthy activity programmes for other children and young people. This project has improved the access to sport and games for hundreds of young people in local community groups.

me2: we enable young disable people to achieve inclusion in mainstream community based groups. This is not a buddying or befriending scheme; we use a peer mentoring model through which disabled people are supported to set themselves and work towards inclusion oriented targets, evaluating their progress each week. This process is proven to lead to inclusion, increased self confidence and aspiration, and therefore greater resilience and likelihood of achieving independence in adulthood. This project has changed the lives of disabled young people, supporting them to achieve inclusion and independence.

Kent Peoples Trust is a grant making charity dedicated to Crime Prevention, Substance Abuse Education and Victims of Crime Support in Kent. The Trust has made over £500 000 in donations or grants to projects and community groups to help make Kent a Safer Place. It is supported by a number of Corporate organisations, individuals and civil sector members. The Trustees and Board members meet every quartet to allocate funds. Application forms can be obtained from the office at Kent Police Headquarters Sutton Road Maidstone ME15 9BZ  or via email from kentpeoplestrust@kent.pnn.police.uk  

The Director of the Trust has, since the founding of the Kent Charities Group, been involved in the ideals and actions of the Kent Charities Group as a further commitment to the communities of Kent.      

The Kent Peoples Trust supports a number of "Handy Van" Schemes that offer a safe and reliable service to vulnerable people who need to improve the security and safety of their homes.   The Vans are staffed by skilled and vetted  workman who fit fire alarms, door locks and other security equipment. In many cases we work with our partners to ensure that the equipment is of the highest standard and that we reach as many of the homes as possible.

Hi Kent is the county of Kent’s deaf and hard of hearing registered charity, established in 1986. One person in every seven is deaf or hard of hearing, and in Kent there are around a quarter of a million people who need our help.  From our resource centres in Maidstone, Canterbury and Medway, and through our countywide network of hearing aid aftercare clinics, we manage to help more people every year. We depend on our team of dedicated unpaid volunteers for our charitable activities.  In 2007 Hi Kent was the only Kent voluntary organisation to receive the Queen’s Award For Voluntary Service.

Hi Kent made a very real difference to an elderly Maidstone gentleman who had a problem with his hearing aid that his local Audiology clinic had been unable to fix. He came to a special emergency clinic run by Hi Kent on 29th December. Our volunteer patiently examined his hearing aid and discovered the problem to be a minute fragment of plastic that had become lodged in the device. He painstakingly removed it, and the client was extremely grateful to be able to hear again, enabling him to enjoy the remainder of the Christmas and New Year holiday season.

The Kenward Trust offers hope for those who are serious about wanting to recover from drug and alcohol abuse and work towards a new life - free from their addiction. At our residential rehabilitation and community recovery centres, caring, professional staffs work closely with residents to restore self-confidence, dignity and other life skills needed to equip them to live productive independent lives once more.

Born of addictive parents and raised in an addictive household, “Simon” was a heroin addict and alcohol dependant at the age of 13 years old. Living a chaotic lifestyle, “Simon” struggled with his addiction for thirty years until he could stand no more and sought help with the Kenward Trust, where he spent almost four years rebuilding his life. Completely drug and alcohol free, “Simon” is now a fully qualified addiction counsellor and is helping others needing help with their own addictive ways, to find a “new life from addiction”. It is a sad fact that one in every fifteen people throughout the UK, suffer from alcohol or other drug addiction!!

Wildlife Heritage Foundation is a specialist conservation charity based in Kent, UK. The Foundation has three key aims:

• To run a big cat breeding centre of excellence using stock made available by the European Endangered Species Programmes (EEP).

• To work with zoo and NGO partners internationally to protect carnivore species and the environment in which they live.

• To educate members and visitors to our sanctuary on the issues surrounding the protection and preservation of the species that we work with.

WHF is the UK’s largest specialist big cat breeding centre, we have successfully bred Sumatran tiger and Amur leopard two of the worlds rarest predators. In 2010 we will increase our facilities to enable us to hold a second breeding pair of Amur leopards, native to Far East of Russia only 35 of these animals survive in the wild.