Sometimes, when you engage in a corporate responsibility initiative (CSR), it is not always possible to see or hear the direct impact of your involvement. For some of our initiatives, we look at what our staff want to support or, at the other end of the spectrum, what initiatives synergise with our business. However, sometimes, in the case of our relationship with Apollo, our decision to support their work was based purely on emotion.

For those who don’t know, Apollo is a locally born social enterprise founded by Liam Doherty that was established to help empower vulnerable young people in Guernsey through positive activities and mentorship.

Apollo does things differently. They ask young people what they want to do and make it happen. By listening and responding to the wishes and needs of Guernsey’s most vulnerable young people, Apollo has had exceptionally high engagement and transformative results.

We have been supporting Apollo for a couple of years.

Our support has been life-changing, most recently for a young boy. Before Apollo intervened, things were going completely the wrong way. He was excluded from school on behavioral grounds, spending his school holidays in his small house, and excluded from summer activity provision; in short, falling through the cracks of the established care system locally. His future wasn’t looking positive.

With developmental delays and special educational needs, he didn’t have the best start. By ten years old, he had never flown a kite, rode a bike, picked blackberries, gone fishing, or participated in many other activities most children take for granted.

Imperium’s support in 2023 initially funded one-to-one mentoring with this child, allowing him to access these and other kinds of activities that were missing from and crucial to his happy and healthy development. In 2024, Imperium supported his access to one of Apollo’s Youth Groups.

There are three stages in Apollo’s service cycle: one-to-one mentoring, youth groups, and adventures. The values around which these service areas are oriented were defined by the children themselves in a strategy meeting last spring. They told Apollo’s staff that they had been missing and needed consistency, freedom, agency, and feeling valued.

Apollo emphasises physical activity in the outdoors throughout its services, recognising that mental well-being is inextricable from physical well-being. (e.g., children’s choice).

The outdoors is an undervalued privilege that most of us take for granted. Most of Apollo’s children don’t live in settings with much outdoor space and do not have access to or cannot afford after-school activities.

In addition to the funding for mentoring, Imperium helped fund a trip to Sark for a group of Apollo’s young people who all got to camp and participated in fun outdoor activities, including kayaking, fire-making and coasteering. Many of the children had never been to Sark or on any trip, let alone a camp, and several were excluded from school trips because of behavioral issues. The camp was a huge success: being phone-free, being with nature, being believed in, and being with each other empowered them beyond words.

Imperium will continue to support Apollo this year.

I’m keen to share Apollo’s story with our wider peers. Apollo relies heavily on grants and donations and works with a lean team to deliver life-changing services. We are building our future community and workforce and setting them on the right path early can make a difference beyond imagination.

You can find out more about Apollo and Liam’s work here: apolloguernsey.gg