STRIVE PROGRAMME

Empowering individuals towards creating an exemplary Muslim community. For 16+ young people that have left secondary school

About the Programme

The STRIVE programme is an 11-month course starting in September 2024 and ending in July 2025. It combines classroom sessions with outdoor activities and includes three major events:

• Leadership Retreat: A weekend residential trip focused on developing leadership skills and fostering unity among the participants.
• The Young Muslim Awards: An event management project managed by the participants, giving them the opportunity to develop their project management and other relevant skills.
• The Fundraising Challenge: The fundraising challenge is a key element of the STRIVE programme as it teaches the youth the importance of charity and fundraising

The programme aims to provide a balanced understanding of Islam, boost confidence, and improve life skills. Through this mix of learning methods, participants will gain a deeper appreciation of their faith while developing important skills for everyday life.

The Curriculum

Each session will cover a unit from our ‘Leadership Model’ which is a carefully compiled list of 25 prophetic qualities that we feel young people can benefit from attaining. The chosen topics are explored in detail, with the relevance to Islam in the modern day as one of the main points of focus.

The Faith Inspire Leadership Model

STRIVE consists of fortnightly sessions with breaks during school holidays, and Ramadan.

Every session has been designed with the young person in mind, meaning we avoid too much ‘teaching’ and focus on interactive learning and engaging activities.

The schedule for this year’s programme can be found below:

Expectations

The STRIVE programme is intended to be a safe and enjoyable atmosphere for the young people. This includes boys and girls, and so we expect all participants to be respectful of one another, respectful to the team delivering the programme, and behave in a manner that is befitting a Muslim.

STRIVE uses a strike system: after 1 strike, we will have a conversation with the young person; after 2 strikes, we will involve the parents; after 3 strikes, the young person will be removed from the programme.

Also, we have designed the STRIVE programme to cause the least hassle and inconvenience to the young people. We line up the STRIVE sessions with the academic terms in the school calendar, accounting for half term and end of term breaks. Parents and/or participants are encouraged to inform us of any planned absences 24 hours before the STRIVE programme at the latest.

The Service

Delivery will consist of a vast amount of facilitators and guest speakers with experience in youth and community work, including contributions from specialists in their respective fields. Guest speakers range from Imams to CEOs, all adding their own unique perspective to the workshops.

Excursions will be organised to get a feel and understanding of concepts that have been covered in sessions, and applying them to real-life settings.

Recognising the achievement of all representatives with awards will be presented at the end of the programme. This will be a celebration involving friends, family and the wider community for striving throughout the course and successfully completing the ‘Strive’ programme with Faith Inspire.

The £200 fee what will it cover and why?

The program fee for each participant is only £200, although the actual cost exceeds £500. This reduced fee is made possible through subsidies received from Faith Inspire members’ contribution, Launch-Good’s Ramadan Campaign, and funds raised by previous STEPS cohorts

The £200 will cover the following:

• September – July programme
• Refreshments
• Faith Inspire Welcome Pack
• Classroom and venue hire
• Transport to fundraising challenge and refreshments
• Celebration dinner
• The three-day residential cost that includes:
  • Transports from London to venue
  • Accommodation (room share)
  • Three meals a day
  • Activity centre cost, such as archery, high ropes and more

For those that are struggling to make the full payment, we ask you to write to us via email for committee consideration for a concession; this will be reviewed on a case by case and we will provide further subsidies, if required. Please note that the committee decision is final, due to limited funds.

Email Address: Faithinspireyouth@gmail.com

Location

The STRIVE sessions will primarily be in a single venue. However, for our non-content based sessions, we may opt to have sessions at different venues or in different areas, parents will be notified of this in advance.

The Venue is in Tower Hamlets:

The Osmani Centre

58 Underwood Rd,

London,

E1 5AW

Course Details

Every session will be:

Day: Tuesday

Time: 5:30-7:30

Frequency: Fortnightly (every 2 weeks)

Term time only (Half term breaks)

Applicants must be 16 years old(sixth form students only) – 21 years old.

Frequently Asked Questions

I have two children, is there any discount?

The programme has already been heavily subsidised, so unfortunately, we are unable to offer any further discounts for additional children.

We can, however, offer further subsidies to those unable to afford the full price. We welcome you to email us at FaithInspireYouth@gmail.com and we will review each case on its own merit.

Is there segregation in the classroom?

Boys and girls are seated on different sides of the room. Our team of facilitators is made up of brothers and sisters who are all trained and will deal with their relevant groups.

The course aims to instil the values of modesty and good Islamic manners in this regard.

Are the sessions held during school half-term breaks?

To ensure young people have a natural break, we have decided not to deliver sessions during half-term breaks, allowing students to spend quality time at home with their families.

We will be following the respective local authority academic calendar. Timetables will be provided for the year, at the start of the session to parents.

There are excursions and trips. When will they take place and will you cover transport and lunch?

All parents will be provided with the calendar for the STEPS programme to ensure they can adequately plan for the year ahead. We will cover all travel and food costs for the planned trips and excursions.

My children have allergies and/or medical conditions, is this taken into consideration?

We will ask parents to complete a registration form to detail any allergies or medical conditions, however you are welcome to speak to the leaders for clarity.

We will try our best to accommodate the students’ needs. If, however, we are unable to, we shall be in touch.

My child has special educational needs and requires support?

We are unfortunately not able to support children with SEN, as this requires a specialist to be with us during all of the sessions. We are unable to cover the cost of this on this occasion, but it is something we shall endeavour to work on in the future Insha’Allah.

Do we need to pick up our child from the centre or can they leave when the session ends?

It is the responsibility of the parents to decide how best the child gets home. We will not be able to stay longer than 15 minutes at the premises after the session ends.

How will you communicate with parents?

The main way we communicate with parents will be via a parents’ WhatsApp group. It is important parents provide the right number when signing up their child so we can add them to the group and inform them of any information/changes to the programme. If we are not able to reach you via your phone number, we will chase up via email.

What if my child misbehaves?

We will give a warning to students who misbehave, however, with any incident deemed to be serious, we shall endeavour to arrange a meeting with the student and parents to discuss the best way forward.

My child does not wish to participate any longer on the programme, how should this be managed?

Please inform us at your earliest convenience, and we would be happy to discuss what we can do to better accommodate the student’s needs.

STEPS is designed to accommodate for any changes in a young person’s lifestyle. However, we will not refund any fees paid or any payments relating to excursions after the 48 hour notice deadline.

Can parents accompany the child for any sessions?

Due to safeguarding issues, and the well-being and development of the child, unfortunately parents are not allowed to attend any of the sessions or excursions.

If the programme has started can I still join?

Due to limited spaces, we can only accept participants if we haven’t exceeded our max capacity of 35 participants. Latecomers to the programme will see their price adjusted to reflect the remaining sessions

We welcome suggestions or any enquiries on the details of the events we hold. For further information or any concerns, please email us at faithinspireyouth@gmail.com or call/text 0748 321 5770 and we’ll get back to you within 2-3 days.

Review of Strive 2023-2024

Alhamdulillah, Faith Inspire is proud to announce the graduation of our second STRIVE cohort. This year we hoped to go bigger and better, and after 11 months we can firmly state we’ve done so.

We had 8 graduates attending the celebration dinner with their friends and the team leaders. Some of their amazing achievements this year include:

• Regularly attending and actively participating in STRIVE sessions
• Attended a leadership residential at Kingswood Activity Centre to strengthen their bonds with each other and the leaders
• Organising the second Young Muslim Awards. This year we had a powerful lineup of judges, including Zara Mohammad – General Secretary of Muslim Council of Britain, and Junaid Ahmed – CEO of East London Mosque, and others. We had more than 200 nominations this year, with nominees coming in from across the UK.
• Increasing their Islamic knowledge and exploring the relationship between Islam and other contemporary topics.

Nearly all participants have joined the Faith inspire Youth team to help deliver the next year’s programmes