Supporting young people
Red Balloon, founded in Cambridge 21 years ago to support and educate children and youngsters bullied to such a degree they can’t stay at school, has worked with Great Northern teams to identify signs of bulling in and around the stations, and on our trains and how to handle these sensitive and often distressing incidents.
Senior staff of Red Balloon have also been gifted named passes to travel anytime on Great Northern into London. In addition staff and students can request free travel passes when they need to travel on the Great Northern network to attend meetings or go on residential trips or other educational outings.
Founder and President Dr Carrie Herbert said: “People have no idea how amazing these tickets are. The passes not only save us valuable money that we use to support our students instead, but give me complete flexibility at the drop of a hat to go anytime, peak or off-peak, to London, Westminster, to meet with politicians and persuade them to take seriously the needs of bullied people forced out of school. A lot of our generous donors also live in London.”
Chairman of Trustees, Mike Frankl, said the tickets also helped them visit their Learner Centres in places like Harrow, on the Thameslink route. “As well as our Learner Centres we also have our online Learner Centre, Red Balloon Of The Air. In Cambridge alone, this and the Learner Centre is supporting well over 80 students.”