Oxygen is a youth work charity in Kingston set up by local young people and supported by local churches. Our tagline is ‘Believing in Young People’. All of Oxygen’s work seeks to empower young people to develop their full mental, physical, emotional and spiritual capacities and enable them to realise their potential.

What we do?

• We offer 1-1 mentoring sessions to young people throughout the week, this can take place in school, at home, in the community or online. Our small team provides over 35 hours of this type of 1-1 support each week to young people with multiple complex needs who are disengaged from education or at risk of involvement in crime.

• We operate youth clubs at Kingsnympton Estate Youth Centre on Tuesday and Thursday evenings and we are commissioned to do this by our local youth service. We also operate an after school club at Coombe Boys School. 

• In 2018 we opened the Oxygen Shop in New Malden. A community focussed charity shop which provides volunteering opportunities for adults and young people and is a site for targeted youth work including upcycling projects, employability schemes, work experience and DofE placements.

• Our Digital Youth Work offer includes a Minecraft server which is open from 9am - 10pm everyday and runs guided Wednesday evening sessions.

• We run a Headstart Action project funded by the GLA in partnership with London Youth. This is a 20 week course focused on youth social action and building employability skills which supports young people who are NEET or at risk of being NEET.

• In 2013 we pioneered the What’s the Point? Knife crime programme which uses peer education to equip young people to make change around the issue of knife crime. This has run in schools across Kingston and is now being delivered by partner organisations in Newham and Hackney with interest from many other areas.

• Oxygen also oversees Kingston Street Pastors, whose mission is to care, listen and help people in Kingston’s night time economy (including support for the homeless).