EYC is an acronym for Empowering Young Champions because we aim to empower all young people we work with fulfil their potential in life and make well informed, positive decisions no matter the circumstances they find themselves in. On a deeper level, EYC is also an acronym for Elizando Yolande Carty (known as Annette) and she is the reason why this project now exists.

 

There is significance behind using her birth name for this project because it is not the one she identifies with. Her own difficulties in childhood meant on top of an already challenging home environment, she had many questions about her own identity meaning long before her parents left her and her siblings when she was 22, in Birmingham where they grew up, to go back to Jamaica, she began to use the name Annette and her middle name Yolande. After this, she no longer identified with the name Elizando and through her own journey, has only recently come back into connection with the name Elizando, and therefore this part of her.

 

Navigating adulthood predominantly without her parents, resulted in significant struggles related to multiple disadvantage but she remained strong willed and determined to support her relatives and raise her 3 children. Trying to be as present as possible through life's adversities meant pursuing many of her own dreams including helping vulnerable people had to be sacrificed. Although she sacrificed her own dreams, this meant she dedicated significant parts of parenthood to ensuring she did the best job she could in raising her children. Due to this, long before their experiences of work and higher education, her children were fortunate enough to develop a profound understanding of the importance of characteristics such as compassion, empathy and resilience despite being exposed to a wide range of unhealthy behaviours promoted in wider society predominantly in different areas of South East and South West London.​ 

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Whilst Annette would use these traits to try and shield her children from the worlds dangers, the impact of multiple disadvantage, and various adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) still presented themselves for her 3 children in the form of risk of individual homelessness and family homelessness, Emotionally Based School Avoidance (EBSA), complex home circumstances, challenges due to undiagnosed learning needs, exploitation, exposure to the criminal justice system, serious youth violence, mental health challenges, and exclusions to name a few. 

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Having been on their own journeys to overcome these challenges and unlearn unhealthy behaviours, they have now begun to re-embody the healthy aspects of their mother's blueprint in their personal and professional endeavours. After long periods of separation and distance in adulthood, as a family they are now becoming aligned in their lives meaning, Annette and her children can bring the dreams she once sacrificed to life, whilst also pursuing their own passions regarding helping people.

 

Her children now work in professions that would often be referred to as frontline delivery roles and these roles are spread across, mental health services, criminal justice, police, education, sport and youth work. They hold multiple professional qualifications in their respective areas but the main thing that is consistent across their work is their commitment to utilising the morals and values Annette instilled them with to have widespread change in their roles.

 

Between the 3 of them, in professional capacities, they have supported 1000s of people with varying levels of vulnerability impacted by multiple disadvantage, and worked with 1000s of professionals that work with vulnerable people in a variety of ways.​​This means by combining all of the above, The EYC Project can support people with building emotional resilience, developing tools to give and receive compassion, and skills to emotionally regulate themselves. Additionally, they can be supported in developing skills to create healthier relationships. This will be done alongside decreasing the impact of multiple disadvantage by advocating for young people with professionals just like Annette did with her children to professionals working in areas such as criminal justice, social services, education, NHS and local authority in order to protect her children. 

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This means The EYC Project will ensure those that come into contact with it, will be recipients of high quality, tailored interventions and supported through advocacy in order to help them with fulfilling their full potential.