The Y has been awarded £707,500 through the Heritage Lottery Fund’s pioneering “Kick the Dust” funding programme. This will fund our project “Y Heritage”, which will be a collaboration between The Y, key civic partners such as our universities and local authorities, and the city and county’s wide and brilliant variety of heritage, cultural and creative organisations. The money will be used to better engage young people with heritage across both city and county.

Y Heritage will run a series of “Dragons Den” style pitches over three years where Leicester/Leicestershire based organisations can apply for funding up to £30,000 from a panel of young people. The young people all engage in some way with The Y. The organisations must build opportunities for work or training into their project funding application. Our aim is that our young people and the heritage projects develop and thrive together – it really is a win win opportunity!

What is Heritage?

Heritage is really wide-ranging and includes many things from the past that should be preserved for future generations. This does not mean it is solely historic sites or buildings; see below a list of things that make up our heritage. For an understanding of Heritage in all its many forms have a look at some projects supported by the Heritage Lottery Fund.

• archaeological sites;
• books or documents;
• cultural traditions;
• historic buildings;

• people and communities;
• places and events;
• languages and dialects;
• landscapes and gardens;

• memories and experiences;
• places and objects;
• natural heritage.