what we do- young leaders

Young Leaders | empowering young people to lead

March 2026

Big Leaf Foundation's Young Leaders programme is a 12-week course for displaced young people to come together and learn about leadership, legal rights, how to create change and support others.

Now in its fifth year, Young Leaders supports young people to build confidence and knowledge to help them feel more empowered within themselves, their local community and within Big Leaf itself.

Many of the young people we support exhibit natural leadership qualities, and this programme provides an opportunity to hone these skills. We want young people to recognise their strengths and to feel confident to speak out on the issues that matter to them.

"I have learnt that leadership shows up in small moments. In listening, in stepping up and in supporting others. Leadership is not about power, but about service." 
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We're committed to supporting displaced young people to participate in the development and leadership of Big Leaf and become active leaders within their community, making lasting changes to issues that affect their lives.

Graduate Young Leaders have gone on to speak at colleges, to local community groups and at Big Leaf events. They have helped to train our partners, been interviewed by local and national media and co-created Big Leaf projects and events, including our Refugee Week celebrations. Their ideas shape what we do and how we do it... informing future iterations of the Young Leaders project, our organisational strategy and various projects.

But we don't do this alone. We know that partnerships make us stronger and we work with Surrey University School of Law, Jamie's Farm and Guildford Shakespeare Company to deliver our Young Leaders programme.

"What initially started as workshops for Young Leaders turned out to be a place where we learnt a lot more from there. It's been a very open learning environment where our students get to discuss the complexities of the law at length and explore the difficulties and the practical side of what we learn every day at University."
Jessica, Law Student, University of Surrey.

The programme begins with a residential at Jamie's Farm, bringing the group together and exploring their sense of self while also team building and creating a sense of trust with us and each other. We then progress to workshops on leadership, human rights and democracy, storytelling, employment skills, campaigning and public speaking.

"What we learned in the classroom was not just lessons from books, they were in fact lessons for life that we will take with us forever."
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Each participant is then matched with a volunteer mentor who supports them to achieve their personal goals.

At the end of the programme we come together alongside partners, supporters, funders and friends to celebrate the achievements of the young people in a graduation ceremony, hosted at the University of Surrey.

"Sitting in the room [at graduation], I thought about the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, a landmark Human Rights treaty, the most widely ratified human rights treaty. It took less than a year for it to enter into force. Programmes like this give the treaty real meaning."
Dr. Bonny Ling, Graduation Guest

With huge thanks to the Listening Fund as part of The National Lottery Community Fund for supporting our Young Leaders programme. You can read more about Youth Leadership in Action within Big Leaf on p24. of our latest annual review.