Prince shown around new £2.5 million facility that aims to boost the support Feltor Youth Club can provide to young people in Pilton
Prince Edward, the Earl of Wessex, has opened a new £2.5 million youth centre in one of Edinburgh's most deprived areas.
His Royal Highness visited the new Fetlor Youth Club in Pilton to officially open its purpose built centre and met with young people from local community groups.
As the senior trustee of the Duke of Edinburgh’s (DofE) Awards, the Earl also met with groups supported by Fetlor working towards different levels of the awards.
Fetlor Youth club now has more than 300 active members aged seven to 17 and hopes to increase that in its new facility.
One of the UK’s oldest youth groups, it spans back to 1924 when the headmasters of Loretto and Fettes College proposed the formation of a boy’s club in Edinburgh to commemorate the sacrifice of the 371 former pupils of the schools in the First World War.
The club provides a range of educational, social and recreational opportunities for children from deprived areas of Edinburgh with an emphasis on outdoor activities such as mountain biking, kayaking and hiking.
In 2006 the board launched an £2.5m appeal to replace the aging military huts that the club was based in. The resulting new building has now been shortlisted for the Royal Institute of Architecture for Scotland (RIAS) 2017 awards.
The Earl of Wessex was shown around the development and served lunch prepared by Feast, a social enterprise that will shortly move into the youth club kitchen with a long-term goal of training young people in the food industry.
Amy Henderson, youth manager at Fetlor, said: “As someone who grew up in Muirhouse, I know how much young people in this area can achieve if they are provided with the right kind of opportunities which is what we try and do at Fetlor. They can try a range of outdoor activities in a safe environment and the young people really see the benefit of that in their lives.”
“For everyone here to have a chance to explain what we do to the Earl of Wessex has been really special, and it has been fantastic both for the staff, volunteers and young people to have that kind of endorsement of what we do here.”
