Youth Learning Network (YLN) is a not-for-profit organisation centred on education and cultural heritage to help young people thrive in a challenging world.

Who are we

YLN is an award-winning, not-for-profit organisation that aims to encourage and enrich the local community through extracurricular activities, such as tutoring, motivational programmes, youth mentoring, chess and trips around and outside the UK.

Organisations like YLN are critical in aiding children’s recovery from COVID–19 restrictions, lockdowns and the effect of general disruptions to education since March 2020. We have achieved great success and were recently honoured with the accolade of Best Cultural Education Providers 2020, receiving a certificate of appreciation. We were also awarded the COVID–19 Civic Award by Southwark Council.

Based in East Dulwich, YLN aims to help families living across London including boroughs of Southwark, Lambeth, Lewisham, Croydon and further afield. Our aim is to support and empower parents and families in London to make a difference in their children’s lives. We support children in key stages 1 – 4 by working alongside the national curriculum in order to enhance their learning and reinforce key skills such as reading, writing and maths.

Our educational programme includes a range of activities that enrich learning, develop academic minds and support maturity, confidence and healthy self-esteem. YLN has also designed programmes that provide young people with the opportunity to experience African Culture and learn about their roots. This has had a hugely positive impact on past students as they have gained valuable knowledge of their heritage and culture, knowledge that is missing from the current school lessons.

See our Latest Events page to learn more about our upcoming activities and events.

Our mission

Our particular focus has been to provide extra support to children and young people from families of African and Caribbean descent, or those identified as having difficulties in mainstream education. This might be due to general lack of motivation and concentration, or circumstances that have led to children being on the verge of exclusion, or are already excluded.

We support and encourage parents to engage in their children’s education and provide valuable strategies to improve relationships with mainstream education providers. We also empower parents and families with knowledge of how the educational system functions, to be able to highlight areas where the system might be failing their children.

YLN provides support to parents and local communities, raising educational awareness and standards that allow them to play active roles in schools and school work. We act as a focal point for the spread of new ideas in the field of parental involvement and a voice on how schools are organised and run.

Our vision

YLN’s vision responds to the African Union’s proposal for African Diaspora to enhance their relationships with the people of Continental Africa and Caribbean communities.

We are very proud to have been able, with the help of British Airways, to provide trips to Ghana. This gave YLN learners the opportunity to learn about the great Ghana Empire of Timbuktu, understand the history of slavery which disrupted the development and advancement of Africa and learn about those that fought for freedom by visiting national museums and places of historical interest.

We hope to continue to put these insightful trips together because of the educational and character building benefits we have seen in past students. We have observed young British Africans, on experiencing the lives of young continental Africans, developing a better understanding of their own lives through a comparative assessment. This might be through noticing differences in quality of life, culture, economic advantages or disadvantages as a result of where they have been born or raised. This results in a more focused, career-driven young person with a desire to take full advantage of the education at their fingertips and to approach learning and higher education decisions with maturity and dedication.

Donate here to Help us reach our target for the next excursion to Ghana.

Our history

YLN was established in February 2006 under the umbrella of the Home Office funded Grassroots Rising Community Regeneration Network Team at Southwark Action for Voluntary Organisations (SAVO, now Community Action Southwark, CAS).

We started out as The Youth Dialogue Project, funded by UnLtd’s Refugee Initiative for Social Entrepreneurs. The Youth Dialogue Project focused on youth solutions to issues commonly faced by young people with the aim of creating a safer, stronger and more inclusive community, as outlined in the Home Office Charter for Communities.

In January 2008, the organisation became a Social Enterprise (Company Limited by Guarantee, registration no. 6484203) with a Company Secretary and Directors, and in May 2011, acquired Charitable Status (registration no. 1141917) dedicated to engaging and improving the lives of African and Caribbean children and young people.