Children’s charity the Youth Sport Trust has launched a campaign to raise £25,000 in a week.

The funds will be used to improve the health and wellbeing of more than 500 frontline teachers, which in turn could have a positive impact on up to 15,000 young people.

Teachers and school support staff have been on the frontline throughout the COVID-19 pandemic - working tirelessly to ensure young people, particularly those who are vulnerable, continued to have a safe place to learn and grow. They have enabled other frontline staff such as NHS workers to carry on, safe in the knowledge that their children were looked after in the school environment.

Ali Oliver MBE, Chief Executive of Youth Sport Trust, said:

New research by our partner the Bupa Foundation identified nearly half of teachers found the past half-term the most stressful time they have known, with just 4% saying that they were able to prioritise their wellbeing daily over the past few months. 

Through this campaign, we are looking to raise a total of £12,500 which will then be match funded through the Big Give. It will support our frontline teaching staff through our Well Schools community.

Teachers have worked so hard since this pandemic begun, it’s time we said thank you to them. We hope everyone will give generously this Christmas to help reach our target and support the wellbeing of our teachers.

The Youth Sport Trust was successfully named as a chosen charity in the widely recognised Big Give annual match funding campaign earlier this year and is now asking for donations as part of the Christmas Challenge when it goes live on 1 December.

In order to access the £12,500 in the matching pot, the Youth Sport Trust needs to raise £12,500 in online donations.

Donations to frontline teaching staff through Well Schools will be generously matched by the Monday Charitable Trust and Sky Sports during the campaign meaning any money donated can support twice as many teachers and young people.

How can you get involved?

Visit theBigGive.org.uk and make a donation from 12pm (midday) on #GivingTuesday (1st December). The campaign will close at 12pm on Tuesday 8th December.

To make a pledge and find out more about our involvement in the campaign click here.

About the Christmas Challenge

The Christmas Challenge 2018 raised £13,336,636 and is the UK’s biggest online match funding campaign. It offered the supporters of hundreds of participating charities the opportunity to have their donation doubled on theBigGive.org.uk when the campaign went live on #GivingTuesday, 27th November 2018. 589 charities participated in the campaign this year which supported a huge variety of causes - from small local organisations to large international charities, supporting those that need it most including refugees, children, older people and animals. The Christmas Challenge was launched in 2008 by Sir Alec Reed, founder of Reed Recruitment. Match funding is provided by a range of philanthropic organisations, called ‘Champions’ including the Reed Foundation, the EQ Foundation, Candis, The Childhood Trust, The Hospital Saturday Fund, National Lottery Heritage Fund, and many more. #ChristmasChallenge20 / One donation, twice the impact.

About Bupa Foundation's research

 Survey conducted in November via Teacher Tapp, a daily survey app that asks over 8,000 teachers questions each day and reweights the results to make them representative. More details here.