Gourock YPI charity winner announced

One of the first schools to benefit from CalMac's partnership with the Wood Foundation's Youth and Philanthropy Initiative (YPI) has announced its winning project.

St Columba's High School in Gourock has awarded the £3000 winning prize to Greenock based charity Mind Mosaic.

Mind Mosaic provide counselling and therapy session for couples, employees and individuals who have experienced trauma to help them on the road to recovery.

YPI is an active citizenship programme that empowers young people to make a difference in their local communities while developing new skills.  

Pupils from participating schools form teams to research social issues in their area and the charities working to address them. They then make a case for their chosen charity as to why they should receive a cash grant to help with their work.

CalMac's Director of Human Resources, Christine Roberts was one of the competition's judges.

'This was an extremely difficult process as the quality of the submissions were extraordinary from all the S3 pupils involved. All the charities were worthy causes but the clarity of thinking behind the business case put forward from the winning team just clinched it for the judging panel.'

Picture shows: CalMac's Director of HR Christine Roberts and Director of IT, Simon Hulme present the Isla and Rebecca with their winning cheque.  

The west coast ferry operator has committed to partnering YPIs in 11 schools across its area of operations. The winning presentation was made by pupils Isla Rodgers and Rebecca Jess.

'We decided to make our social issue mental health in adults and kids,' said Isla.

'The reasons we think this is so important is the amount of pressure that youth and younger adults experience nowadays and we have saw first hand how pressure affects our generation in both in school and out so it really wasn't a hard decision for us since we've had it on our minds for quite a while.'

The girls said that the charity would be spending the money on improving their crèche facilities. As well as being on the judging panel YPI offers CalMac employees an opportunity to mentor pupils in their journey through the programme.

Alex Reid, YPI Scotland National Coordinator, said:

'Congratulations to the pupils. It is always incredibly humbling and inspiring to hear young people advocate so passionately on behalf of causes they truly care about.

'We are delighted to further develop our relationship with CalMac and extend our thanks once again for their role in empowering #generationchange in the region to make a real difference in their communities.'