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Young people enjoy action packed summer with free MCard bus ticket
20 June 2022Hundreds of free bus tickets to help kids take part in this summer’s National Citizen Service (NCS) programmes in West Yorkshire.
Hundreds of teenagers aged 16-17 across West Yorkshire are being offered free bus travel to help them benefit from an action-packed range of summer team-building fun.
MCard, the easy to use, go-anywhere ticket for all of West Yorkshire’s buses, is supporting local young people with a week of free travel to access the NCS programme in partnership with the English Football League (EFL) Trust and local NCS Delivery Partners including Leeds United Community Programme, Bradford City Community Trust, Huddersfield Town Foundation, The Yorkshire Cricket Foundation, Huddersfield Giants Community Trust and Leeds Rhinos Foundation.
Around 2,300 teenagers are taking part in NCS in West Yorkshire this summer, learning new skills and meeting new friends. This is a significant increase from 1,000 teenagers who took part last year and contributed over 30,000 hours of social action in West Yorkshire. The programme has changed significantly welcoming back the popular 1-week residential part of the programme now that Covid restrictions are no longer in place and focusing activities on helping participants to reach their potential, to build their confidence, to have their voices heard and to make a positive impact in their community.
National Citizen Service scheme participants supporting their local communities with social action projects in the summer of 2021
Libby Hills, now 17, was one of the young people to take part in NCS last year in Bradley Wood, she said: “NCS was such a great experience. It was brilliant to try something new and to meet different people. And it was really good to give back to our local community with our social action project. Without the free bus travel, I might never have been able to do any of it.”
EFL Trust Chief Executive Mike Evans said: “This is the eleventh year that the EFL Trust has partnered with the NCS to deliver life-changing experiences for teenagers across the country. In that time, over 80,000 young people have taken part. Thanks to our partnership with MCard, our NCS programmes can be more inclusive for young people, removing the barrier of travel cost, which is so important to us. The free travel will also give young people a taste of independence and support them with the delivery of their social action project.”
Richard Armitage, Chair of the West Yorkshire Ticketing Company that manages MCard, said: “Free bus travel with MCard is a game changing offer which will help many more of our young people to benefit from these amazing courses. Many school leavers have up to 16 weeks away from full time learning between finishing their exams and taking up a place in further or higher education or apprenticeship. This presents a great opportunity to have fun and learn new skills – and the NCS programme is an ideal way to spend a couple of weeks making new friends in a safe and supportive way.”
Free travel is being delivered via the easy-to-use MCard mobile app – teenagers can download it for free, then use the same email address used to register for NCS to set up an account. The EFL Trust then gifts them one free weekly bus ticket, which they can activate and use to travel to their NCS West Yorkshire base.
Places are still available on several NCS programmes across West Yorkshire – for information and bookings, visit: https://wearencs.com.
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