Our History
VSU Youth in Action is a youth action agency and registered charity supporting young volunteers in positive, practical and self-determined response to real community needs.
VSU began in Sevenoaks Schools in 1964, providing support for young people, who wished to volunteer in the community . This developed into providing support with a number of other West Kent private schools. The charity established offices in Tonbridge, Sevenoaks and Tunbridge Wells where young people could meet and plan their community work and gradually established new partnerships with state schools in the region.
For the next forty years the charity continued to grow and extend its remit to Dartford and Gravesham, followed later with an office in Maidstone. The success of VSU’s young people in delivering childrens’ clubs, environmental projects and campaign programmes lead to contracts with local and national government offices, trusts, foundations and private sector companies. These include The Rank Foundation, Fidelity UK, Lloyds Plc, Children-in-Need, The Paul Hamlyn Foundation and the Guy Hands Trust.
In 1999 VSU secured the coveted Millennium Volunteer (MV) Contract for West Kent with targets of 800 young volunteers per annum, many of whom achieved the premier 200 hours accreditation. Later, in 2003, VSU also took responsibility for the East Kent & Medway Towns MV contract (formerly held by KCC) and from that year onwards, VSU worked with an average of 2500 young people, each year, in over 45 childrens’ clubs, projects for the elderly, the disabled and supporting the growing cultural diversity of Kent & Medway. The Youth Action Groups have also developed projects over the years that have addressed Fair Trade, Amnesty International, animal rights, green issues and many other social causes.
VSU has always enjoyed the support of county, unitary, district and borough councils in Kent & Medway and has established and successful partnerships with social services, Connexions Kent & Medway, KCC Youth and Kent Youth, The Parents Consortium and Barnados, we also work closely with the many adult volunteer services across the county and support small and large community charities.
From its beginnings in 1964, with Sevenoaks School, VSU now recruits young volunteers from more than 80% of the secondary schools in Kent & Medway and has formal service level agreements with over 20 private and state schools.
