Aylesbury Youth Action

Aylesbury Youth Action is a youth organisation that encourages young people between the ages of 14 and 24 to volunteer for their communities. It is based in the Queens Park Centre in Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire, England.
In October 1970 the headteachers of the six secondary schools in Aylesbury met to discuss a joint plan to co-ordinate citizenship lessons in their schools. The headteacher of Aylesbury Grammar School, K. D. Smith, had been to Cambridge the previous year and had seen a model agency called Youth Action Cambridge. It was decided that a similar organisation ought to be set up in Aylesbury.
The organisation was founded in September 1971 and initially was only supposed to run for a year, co-ordinated by a student on placement from Community Service Volunteers. The young people recruited into the organisation from the local schools got involved in hospital visiting, collecting parcels to give to the elderly at Christmas and the World Wheelchair Games in Stoke Mandeville. At this time the organisation was based in Pebble Lane, Aylesbury.
In September 1976 the organisation moved into its current premises at Queens Park. This is also about the time that the organisation got its first paid co-ordinator. The following year AYA appeared on national television in the UK because of the amount of good work their volunteers were doing in the community.
The organisation has now been running for over thirty years and has helped over 10,000 young people in that time. Notable past members include the writer Andy Riley.
Aylesbury Youth Action is also a founder member of the National Federation of Youth Action Agencies, which recently changed its name to the Youth Action Network.

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