The Big House is about to move to a new home! We’re renovating an old frame factory in Islington to create a first class youth facility for care leavers with multiple performance, rehearsal, community and office spaces. Our new home will enable us to expand our pioneering creative projects and create a space where young people feel supported and inspired. But we need your help to raise money to install a kitchen in the building, and to run cooking workshops and evening meals that bring isolated young people together to share food with the local community. Through these activities we will: • Teach vital budgeting and healthy eating skills to care leavers living on their own • Bring diverse communities of people together in a positive environment to make and eat delicious healthy food • Expand young people’s networks by bringing them into contact with local residents and businesses So please help us make a difference to the lives of care leavers and the local community!

What we'll deliver:

• A brand new kitchen in a vibrant creative space
• Monthly cooking workshops, working with 120 care leavers throughout the year
• Monthly evening meals welcoming over 600 guests from the local community
• Connecting young care leavers with new networks of people including local residents and businesses

Why it's a great idea:

Many of the young people we work with tell us they leave care without feeling fully prepared. In fact 58% of care leavers say they don't feel ready to live independently and 1 in 5 feel like they have no-one in their support networks they can turn to for help (Centrepoint, 2017). The Big House creates a community for care leavers where they truly belong. Too many young people struggle with feelings of isolation, and leaving care without a support network or social group is a daunting prospect. Many of our young people do not eat healthily and this kitchen may provide the only chance they have in a week for a healthy, cooked meal.

Steps to get it done:

• Finalise plans for new kitchen
• Install new kitchen
• Work with young people to plan and develop first cooking workshop
• Run monthly cooking workshops and evening meals

Through this project we will help care leavers build important life skills while improving their self-confidence and encouraging collaboration and positive interaction between young people and the wider community. We believe that sitting around a table, sharing food and having open and positive discussions is important for our young people, and this new kitchen will help them increase their support networks and engage with members of the local community. The new kitchen will also be a lasting legacy with benefits felt long into the future. We will be able to use it in the delivery of our wider programmes of work, both next year and over the next decade.