The Youth Charter believes that it is a fundamental human right that young people have access to sport, arts and cultural activity as part of their mental, physical and emotional health, wellbeing and development.
 
When this right is denied, the disadvantage and disaffection leads to antisocial behaviours, gang related activity and in some cases extremism. This impacts on the quality of life, not only of the young person, but their victims, families, friends, communities and society as a whole.
 
The Youth Charter launched on 23rd March 1993, at Wembley Stadium, in response to the tragic murder of 14-year-old schoolboy Benji Stanley, who was shot dead in Moss Side on 2nd January 1993.
 
In 2023, the Youth Charter has recorded 85 Young Lives Lost to Youth Violence on the streets of the UK & Ireland, an 18% increase on the 72 Young Lives Lost in 2022.
 
The Community Campus reflects the agency’s national campaign and ‘Call 2 Action’ from the YC 2019 Youth Manifesto, with the additional consideration of Covid-19 and the Black Lives Matter movement to re-engage, re-equip and re-empower 1 million young people in the UK, recruit, select and deploy 10,000 Social Coaches in each of the 10 major cities of the UK and to map, track and measure the social, cultural and economic outputs and outcomes that are aligned to the United Nations 2030 Sustainable Development Goals.