Leading Wales Awards

Young Leader
Maisey Andrews, Founder and Chair, Goodies in Hoodies

Goodies in Hoodies is a youth action group that creates activities and opportunities for young people through a volunteering reward scheme, reducing relationship barriers and aiming to diminish anti-social behaviour.

At the age of 16, Maisey conceived and founded the youth project Goodies in Hoodies to dispel the negativity associated with teenagers in hoodies on a Fairwater estate. It is now a widely acclaimed project and recognised as an example of best practice across the UK.

Maisey’s original vision was to set out to prove that not all young people wearing hoodies are stereotypically ‘bad’. She also wanted to create the opportunity for volunteers to develop skills, confidence and hands on experience. In two years the project has raised £55,000 which has gone back into funding the charitable and free programme that ‘Goodies in Hoodies’ promote and the figures for anti-social behaviour have gone down by 60% in the Fairwater area.

Maisey now leads a panel of 12 with an additional 100 volunteers. The group has had always tackled the issue of knife crime and she recently met Prime Minister, David Cameron and Brooke Kinsella to discuss the issue, proving that some of the positive programmes out there in local communities are tackling it head on.

Maisey has had to overcome many obstacles yet she is confident in her own abilities and knowledge and has passionately built up a case that disagreed with the current ASBO process which has been acknowledged nationwide.

She has had to make tough decisions to remove members that have operated outside of the project’s vision. But she has always stuck to her guns. Her determination and focus has won the respect of her peers and senior figures alike.

The award-winning project is now moving into namely St Mellons. Maisey has also been invited to discuss with the PM’s aides the possibility of being involved in a similar programme starting up in Miami, Florida, USA.