The Firefly Project
Around 40% of London's children live in poverty, the highest child poverty rate in England.
Quintessentially Foundation & The Firefly Project
In a country as affluent as the UK, it is staggering that 1 in 3 children in London still live in poverty*. The effects of child poverty are devastating, detrimentally impacting a young person's educational and employment prospects, physical health and mental wellbeing.
This is why Quintessentially Foundation’s mission to brighten the lives of children and young people in London facing severe disadvantages is so urgent.
We want to help break the cycle of child poverty and the limitations it places on their futures. We achieve this through our charity incubator, The Firefly Project, which finds, funds and supports small charities making a big impact on the lives of children and young people.
Small frontline charities often have some of the best solutions to society's biggest problems. However, they are often overlooked and underfunded. So, through The Firefly Project, we scale our charity partners’ successful interventions for young people, tackling child poverty in all forms, by providing the charities with:
• Unrestricted funding - so that our partner charities can invest in increasing their internal capacity and prepare for growth.
• Tailored organisational support – ensuring they develop the proper infrastructure for their model to increase the number of young people they support and optimise the quality of their impact.
• Untapped networks and connections – so that they can have more supporters amplifying their cause and, most notably so that they can continue to grow sustainably once our funding ends.
Quintessentially Foundation is 100% donor-funded, and we depend on our generous supporters to fund core costs and inspire a broader network to contribute to our charitable efforts. But we cannot do it alone. We are building a community of like-minded, passionate, and ambitious individuals and organisations to join us in this vital mission.
To find out more about how you can get involved, please visit www.quintessentiallyfoundation.org
*(The Childhood Trust, 2023)
The Kids Network
Yusuf & Florian's Story
Yusuf is a lively 10-year-old with ADHD. He’s really struggled with learning to read and write, which has had a massive impact on his self-esteem and how he views himself against his peers. His fear of failure was holding him back, and so his mum and school thought a mentor could make a difference for him, and help him spend time outside of their small home.
Yusuf was paired with Florian - they played football in parks, and Yusuf introduced Florian to spicy Moroccan food. But one of the most impactful things they did together was cycling. Florian is a keen cyclist – he cycles in competitions and for commuting. Florian thought that cycling would be a really good way to support Yusuf, who had a bike but never got to ride it very far. Yusuf and Florian started using their mentoring sessions to plan increasingly long bike rides across London. They started small but recently completed a 15k ride, and are planning a 20k ride.
Yusuf has developed so many skills through his time with Florian doing this – planning a route, remembering his helmet, planning for different weather, making decisions when things are dangerous, how to keep going when you’re feeling frustrated and tired. These are all key skills for the future, but the main thing Yusuf has learnt is how to achieve a goal, but then reach for more.
