Tash Alexander

A COMEDIAN and youth worker has warned non-profit organisations are being forced to “scramble around” to raise funding as resources dwindle this winter.

Tash Alexander is the founder of Head Held High, an organisation based in Angel that works to support young people at risk of exclusion or involvement with knife crime, as well as helping vulnerable adults and the elderly.

The organisation is now hoping to raise an emergency £20,000 via a GoFundMe campaign to secure its future after a series of funding bids came to nothing. In the longer term, Ms Alexander is hoping to partner with a business “with similar charitable objectives”.

The organisation’s schools programme offers students six weeks of 90-minute sessions, focusing on helping young people achieve behaviour change “before they go down that negative path”.

Ms Alexander said: “The behaviour issue in this country is really bad. I think poverty in this country is getting worse. I think the gap between [being] wealthy and being poor is getting bigger and bigger.

“Your life can get smaller. You get offers like: ‘do you want to do this job for me, do you want to earn £500 for sitting on a train and transferring some drugs from here to there?’ That’s real pressure,” Ms Alexander said.

“What’s happening is you have young people being excluded, and then they get in that world, and then they communicate through fear and intimidation,” she added.

Ms Alexander has worked with a range of Islington schools and youth clubs over the years, including Platform and Lift.

She delivered her last session before the summer holidays, but hasn’t been able to return to schools this term due to a lack of funding.

“I’ve spoken to a few charities and grassroots organisations – everyone seems to be having a similar problem this year,” she said. “It feels like we’re doing frontline work, yet you have to scramble around to try and find the money. I’ve kept [the organisation] small because I don’t know when the next penny’s coming in. It’s not an easy time to win bids – the average bid could be about £4,000, which just covers one programme.”

But she said she hasn’t given up hope for the future. “I feel like it’s a rebuild, a reset,” she said. “Till I end up homeless I’ll carry on with my head held high.”

Ms Alexander, who helps people “find the funny” in their lives, also ran a stand-up comedy fundraiser earlier this year with performances by Dylan Moran and Rich Hall.

If you would like to help, go to: www.gofundme.com/f/help-head-held-high-reduce-youth-crime-in-london