John Lyon’s Charity has long supported the vital work of supplementary schools. Supplementary Schools are community-based initiatives that provide additional educational support for children who are also attending mainstream schools. They are also often geared towards providing specific language and cultural teaching for children from ethnic minorities.
Education and Skills Development Group (ESDEG) is committed to improving the quality of education for disadvantaged children through support and community cohesion and provides a range of education, training and skills development opportunities to members of their organisation. The Supplementary Education sector is very important; it is where many families from refugee and ethnic minority backgrounds turn to get academic support for their children outside mainstream schools. Mohamed Ahmed, Director at ESDEG said: “Since its inception in 2005, ESDEG has helped many generations of children and families excel in education and has provided routes for parents to transform their own lives by going into training and into employment. Our students are now professionals in many different sectors, such as medicine, engineering, law, teaching; some of them even come back to help us by teaching and inspiring current students. Former students come in and inspire children, helping their motivation and inspiring them to aim high.”
ESDEG’s high-quality Supplementary Schools are NRCSE-accredited and have been supported by John Lyon’s Charity since 2008. Since that time, ESDEG has received c.£290,000 towards its supplementary schools and school holiday activities. Mohamed continues: “The funding from John Lyon’s Charity helped ESDEG grow and provide much needed services to the most deprived sections of the community. It helped us secure funds from other funders and has helped others to trust us, too. JLC has helped the children and young people we work with. The success of the children we have taught since 2006 is down to funders like JLC – without their funding it would have been very difficult for those young people to excel in their education and secure successful careers. Grants from JLC have been the backbone to our work and our success is their success.”
Delivering support to help young people overcome barriers to educational achievement has always been the cornerstone of ESDEG’s delivery. ESDEG’s goal for the future is to continue to take every opportunity to grow by supporting more young people and by being their voice. ESDEG fully immerses itself in the importance of community empowerment by helping people to know their rights and by encouraging young people to voice their issues. John Lyon’s Charity is very proud to have supported the inspiring work of ESDEG over the years and who share the same mission to protect the life chances of children and young people.