Who We Are
Level Up Gosport (LUPG) is a charity that supports young adults aged 18 – 25 years with additional needs, including hidden, neurodivergent, or physical disabilities, as well as mental health challenges like low self-esteem and anxiety.
Our charity helps young people to gain self-respect and confidence through community volunteering with local businesses, charities, organisations, and group activities. Many of our youth volunteers have successfully secured employment after participating in LUPG.
Our Mission And Values
Work EXperience initiative (WEXi):
In 2023, we launched our inclusive, bespoke, individually tailored, volunteering Work EXperience initiative (WEXi) programme. This initiative provides a unique forum for socialisation, training and employment skills for young adults who struggle to secure meaningful or sustainable employment.
Our WEXi programme aims & outcomes are:
– to advance the lives of young people by developing their skills, capacities, and capabilities to enable them to participate in society as independent, mature, and responsible individuals.
– to relieve unemployment by providing assistance to find employment through guidance, support, and organising work experience and community volunteering programmes.
Who are our team?
Support Worker: Sophie Goddard
Office Administrator: Ana Vadiga
Allotment Support Worker: Angela Davey
Chair of Trustees, Secretary & Grant Writer: Mary Ive
Trustee – HR Lead: Diane Furlong
Trustee – WEXi Coordinator & Safeguarding Lead: Susan Wright
Treasurer: Councillor Thomas Finn
Trustee – Lead Photography & Media Consultant: Andy Newbold
Young Person Representative (Co-opted): this position is currently awaiting a vote by our Youth Volunteers
Level Up Gosport
Recently, our youth volunteers have supported or been involved in the following projects:
Our Achievements…
- In 2019, our youth volunteers became involved in UK Youth Voice and became a UK Youth Voice representatives at the Royal Garden Party, Buckingham Palace, where they met HRH: Princess Anne and the famous Formula 1 racing driver: Nigel Mansell.
- In 2024, we were honoured & delighted to have been awarded the Kings Award for Voluntary Service. A Trustee, plus one of our young people were invited to a glorious Royal Garden Party at Buckingham Palace.
2024:
– Our young people participated in various workshops with Itchen College, including learning how to pitch in a “Dragons’ Den” style workshop; plus taking part in various cooking and employability skills training….
– Our young people donated and delivered some yummy chocolate eggs to their chosen place: Children’s Services, in Gosport…
– Our young people participated in Health & Safety & First Aid in the Workplace training (gaining certificates), plus Communities Against Cancer re-fresher training…
– Our young people volunteered at our community allotment – clearing, tidying, digging and sowing; creating a bumper crop of produce…
2023:
- Our Project Leader was nominated to receive a Police Crime & Commissioner Award for “Community Volunteer of the Year” & one young person was nominated to receive the Gosport “Youth Award.”
- Our young people launched their local community Board Games & Crafts Events – which are ongoing…
- Many of our youth volunteers participated in WEXi programmes at HiQ Tyres & Autocare; The Carisbrooke Arms; the Hub4Stuff and Gosport Community Cinema.
2022:
– Gardening at Thorngate Halls: where our youth volunteers completely renovated the overgrown gardens and made them neat and tidy for visitors to enjoy.
– Stokes Bay Healthy Eating Project BBQ: where our youth volunteers were encouraged to choose healthy BBQ eating options and enjoyed a game or two of rounders in the sunshine.
– My Favourite Place: Photography Project: our youth volunteers worked alongside Gosport Cultural Consortium, interviewing and photographing local Gosport residents to find out where their favourite places were in the locality. The photographs were put on display at The Discovery Centre in Gosport.
– Gosport Waterfront Festival, which is a music festival highlighting local and national talent – where our youth volunteers met the stars of East 17, & also got the chance to become stewards for the day – learning valuable employability skills. The organisers were very grateful for our support, as they had been let down on the day by some volunteers and would have struggled without our help.
– Gosport Rotary Club: Annual Car Rally at Stokes Bay – our youth volunteers were involved in stewarding, ticket checking, keeping the venue clean and tidy, plus helped with general inquiries from the public. We received the following feedback afterwards, please see below:
“Please pass on the thanks of Gosport Rotary Club…the young people's assistance on the gates was super and the littler pickers did an excellent job; so much so that when we cleared the field at about 6pm there was virtually no litter for us to pick-up."
Volunteering at Gosport Waterfront Festival
Meeting the celebrities at the Gosport Waterfront Festival in 2022
Photography Project - My Favourite Place
Celebrating the Queen's Platinum Jubilee in 2022
Award for 2nd Place for Best Allotment 2021
Thorngate Halls garden after the renovation
Our allotment
Level Up Gosport cultivate their own allotment, a venture which regularly attracts up to eight youth volunteers a week, where they learn horticultural skills with the aim of becoming 100% organic and sustainable. The older allotment holders enjoy engaging with, giving advice and exchanging produce with the young people.
…In 2021 our charity came 2nd Place in a competition for the best allotment…
Our Chair of Trustees proudly receiving the Kings Award for Voluntary Service from the Lord Lieutenant for Hampshire on behalf of our charity