Celebration night for youth projects (From Wiltshire Times)

Celebration night for youth projects

5:01pm Sunday 11th March 2007 in Westbury By Wiltshire Times Reporter

A CELEBRATION of young people's achievements in Wiltshire is taking place on Tuesday.

More than 500 young people from across the county are gathering to attend the WYPOFscars at Club Ice in Westbury.

The event will be a celebration of all the projects which have been funded by the Wiltshire Young People's Opportunity Fund (WYPOF) over the last year.

In the first year, in excess of £215,000 has been given to various projects and events for young people, with an additional £180,000 being granted to capital works for young people.

Every WYPOF application has to be written by young people and all the applications are assessed by a panel of trained young people from Wiltshire Assembly of Youth.

On the evening there will be performances by young people who have received funding.

The focus of the evening will be an awards ceremony hosted by Howard Taylor of Howard and Roo from the breakfast show on GWR FM.

At the ceremony, eight of the most outstanding projects supported by WYPOF funding will use a range of presentations, such as film and drama, to show how their projects helped young people.

One of the eight projects will then be put forward for a national competition with prize money of up to £45,000 to help develop their projects.

Jane Scott, the leader of Wiltshire County Council, will open the evening and members of the UK Youth Parliament will open the winning envelope to announce who the finalist will be.