Charity Spotlight: Halifax Street Angels

Every Friday and Saturday night, while many Halifax residents enjoy a night in town, a team of dedicated volunteers heads out with a very different purpose. For more than 20 years, the tireless volunteers at Halifax Street Angels have helped people socialise and get home safely.

Their work was recently recognised by a group of Year 10 students at Trinity Academy Halifax, who chose the charity as part of the First Give programme and went on to win a £1,000 grant for them.

I met with Lisa from Halifax Street Angels to learn more about the charity’s work and to reflect on the impact young people can have when they support causes they care about. One thing quickly became clear: Halifax Street Angels is built on looking out for others and strengthening community connections.

Image decription: Lisa (left) with two Halifax Street Angels volunteers

Lisa explained: “When people know we’re out, they feel safer. Parents know their children have another pair of eyes looking out for them. People know they can come to us if they need help.”

The charity works alongside local businesses, the police and emergency services to support vulnerable people and provide practical help when it is needed most. Often, that help is quite simple: offering reassurance, helping someone contact a lift home, providing a hot drink, or being a calm presence when someone is feeling vulnerable or alone.

“We don’t judge people,” Lisa told me. “It’s just about making sure people get home safely.”

This year, a group of Year 10 students from Trinity Academy Halifax chose Halifax Street Angels as their First Give charity. Inspired by the charity’s mission of helping people navigate situations safely, the students designed their own social action project to support incoming Year 7 pupils during their transition days into secondary school.

Calling themselves the “Trinity Academy Halifax Corridor Angels”, they wore halos and redesigned their school’s logo to incorporate angel wings as they took to the corridors to help incoming Year 7 students find classrooms, get familiar with their new school and feel confident in an unfamiliar environment.

It was a simple idea, but one rooted in exactly the same principle that drives Halifax Street Angels every weekend: helping people who might otherwise feel lost or vulnerable. For Lisa, hearing about the students’ project was genuinely moving.

“It’s really touching, that’s such a lovely thing to do,” she said. “We need young people to get interested in volunteering and helping people. If you can start that young, it’s such a good foundation for whatever you choose to do next.”

She believes opportunities like First Give do much more than introduce students to local charities. They build confidence, teach communication skills and help young people develop qualities that will serve them well into adulthood. For Lisa, the most important thing is helping young people discover the abilities they have to create change.

“People often think they can’t make a difference, but they can. Even simply saying hello to someone can brighten their day. Small actions have a big impact on how someone feels, and that can have a lasting impact.”

It’s a reminder that social action doesn’t just change communities. It changes the people taking part and helps them unlock new skills and experiences.

“We love when younger members of our community reach out to volunteer,” Lisa shared. “Our volunteers do need to be over 18, but it’s nice to have younger people willing to help out. Young people bring new insight and outlooks that help them see things differently, and that’s a good thing.”

Through First Give, students at Trinity Academy Halifax now better understand the challenges facing their community, have begun what I am sure will become a legacy of Corridor Angel support for future transition days, and have started to see themselves not simply as learners, but as active citizens with the power to create positive change.

Toward the end of our conversation, I asked Lisa what advice she would give to young people who want to create positive change. She said:

“Just be nice and be kind. Even if you think you can’t make a difference, there is always something that you can do.”

Sometimes changing a community starts with nothing more complicated than choosing to look out for someone else, whether that’s out in the streets of Halifax or in the corridors at school. And that’s a lesson every young person can carry with them long after First Give has finished.

For further information about the work of Halifax Street Angels, please see their website: https://www.halifaxstreetangels.org/

By Amy Calvert, Programme Manager for Yorkshire & The North West