Actively feeding the minds of tomorrow, delivered by Active Tameside.
Fuel4fun – Holiday Activity & Food Fund (HAF) has been developed through the department of education (DFE) to engage and deliver interventions to a large cohort of young people aged 6 years up to 16 (Currently in School year 11), and up to 25 years for people with Special educational needs and disabilities (SEND).
There are over 10000 young people in Tameside who receive benefit related free school meals, the main aim of this programme is to engage with these young people over the school holiday period to offer FREE holiday activities supported with interventions, and to provide a nutritious lunch to all, plus a healthy food hamper delivered to the family home. This will also be underpinned by offering training and leadership opportunities to help develop pathways for lifelong learning and development.
Tameside MBC/Active Tameside are responsible for the coordination of the programme and are continuously looking to develop partnerships with community sports clubs, Physical activity/ faith groups and schools with the main purpose being that the partner organisation will deliver holiday programmes independently on behalf of Fuel 4 Fun, and its brand.
Tameside as a borough has a high number of families in poverty and deprivation and holiday hunger is a key element of the funding. Each family receives a hamper delivered to the family home; each hamper contains enough food to feed a family of four for five nights. The hampers contain fresh fruit and vegetables, fresh meat, and ambient products. Alongside this, each meal is accompanied with a menu card with step-by-step guides to create a family approach to home-cooked, healthy meals with the support of online tuition. Menu cards are created in partnership with Tameside Children’s Nutritional Health Team to ensure each meal meets nutritional guidance.
Over the past 12 months the funding has enabled us to support 4935 individual families to receive food hampers (some families receiving five hampers over the summer to support the need in Tameside) with a total of 24675 meals delivered.
On top of helping to break down barriers to access sports and physical activities, children are also encouraged to develop life-skills such as gardening on the trust’s community allotments and cooking their own healthy lunches. Alongside the activities, each child received a healthy lunch, with each child being actively encouraged and involved in the preparation and making, before eating their own lunch, exploring new foods and developing their own recipes.
To create a transferable approach each child receives an activity bag to take home which includes sports items, arts and crafts and a water bottle. Offering each family, the opportunity to increase activity levels at home, boosting their health and wellbeing, and supporting positive behaviour changes.
What’s more, Fuel4Fun has created a number of volunteering and paid employment opportunities. Notwithstanding, the incredible social impact Fuel4Fun has had on young people and their families, it has provided the opportunity for Adult Day Service clients from our Everybody Can programme – which provides services and provision for children and adults with additional needs and/or disabilities – the opportunity to gain valuable life skills through volunteering and paid roles.
The programme funding has now been secured for a second year, due to its overwhelming success in its first year.
Fuel4Fun, an initiative aimed at tackling food poverty and social inequalities for thousands of young people and their families across Tameside, has been hailed a resounding success following its launch in the Easter holidays.
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Once again we’re dishing up delicious helpings of Christmas cheer by embarking on a huge operation to ensure hot meals and festive spirit get to those who need it most.
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The Holiday Activity and Food Programme (Fuel4Fun) has been supporting children and families in the school holidays since 2019. Here is everything you need to know about the programme and how it could help you and your child during the school holidays.
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