Announcing our 2025 Ablaze Impact Report – celebrating our 20th anniversary
2025 was the year in which we celebrated the 20th anniversary of Ablaze and what a year it was! Our 2025 Impact Report reflects on our achievements over the past year.
Click here to read our 2025 Impact Report.
In 2024-25, Ablaze has supported 575 young people with the support of 336 volunteers from 38 businesses; delivered 40 programmes; provided 90 days of work experience; and delivered 3,293 hours of reading and number support!
Our Reading and Number Partners programme grew 44% in 2024-25, reflecting both the continuing demand for our programmes and the growing support of local businesses. 90% of the pupils that took part are now reading with more confidence and 86% are more confident with their mental maths.
Our Career Mentoring and Early Career Mentoring continue to provide students with valuable insights into the world of work and the skills needed in the workplace. 86% of students taking part felt more confident about themselves and their abilities and 100% said they had learned about the skills needed for work.
We delivered the Airbus Future Engineers programme for the eighth year, with the programme taking 20 students from Abbeywood Community School taking part in a series of workshops immerse them in the aviation industry and challenge them to complete a complex design and build project. 89% of the students taking part improved their self-management, leadership skills, and their ability to set and manage targets.
Our Employment and Skills programme ran in September and October, and supported 9 young people from Bristol and South Gloucestershire who were from low socio-economic backgrounds or who had left school without minimum qualifications. Initially, participants were lacking the confidence, self-esteem, social networks, and experience to move themselves forward from their current situation. By the end of the programme, 88% have goals for the future and 100% now feel confident in maintaining a positive outlook in challenging or stressful situations.
A huge thank you to all our amazing volunteers, supporters, donors, trustees and staff.
For 20 years we have supported a generation of young people from their early years to employment. Help us to support the next. You can donate to Ablaze here, or follow us on LinkedIn, Instagram and Facebook.
Sources for Local Context data:
- 27% of children across the West of England are estimated to be growing up in poverty – WECA https://www.westofengland-ca.gov.uk/news/mayor-backs-action-on-child-poverty/
- In the 2024/25 academic year, only 58% of 11-year-olds in Bristol met the expected standards in reading, writing, and maths assessments – Bristol City Council Committee report
- 29.2% of school age children in Bristol receive Free School Meals. This is higher than the national average of 24.6%. – Bristol City Children and Young People’s Health Profile
- In 2024, 837,000 16-24-year-olds were not in education, employment or training (NEET), an increase of 103,600. That is 13.6%, or almost 1 in 7 young people in that age range. – Department for Education report https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/neet-statistics-annual-brief/2024#content
- Of young people aged 16-24 who are currently NEET, it is expected that only 40% will move into work or learning within 6 months, with up to 8% of young people (approximately 576,000) remaining NEET for 12 months. – Joseph Rowntree Foundation report Unlocking the potential of young people furthest from the labour market
Please note that all income and expenditure figures contained in this Impact Report are provisional and subject to change. Our full statutory accounts for the year ended 31 August will be published by the end of May 2026 on the Companies House page for Ablaze.