YOUTH worker Ayesha Banks is making sure dozens of youngsters have a very happy Christmas – and then she’s bidding to make New Year an even happier one for everyone, especially herself.

For Ayesha, 23, who has set up a hugely successful youngsters’ chill-out centre in her home town of Haltwhistle, has more than 90 grateful young people under her wing.

She personally raised £24,000 in funding this year to convert the old Water Tower building at Haltwhistle station into a warm and welcoming activity centre.

It replaced the former Main Street youth club, bringing a larger capacity and introducing everything from computers to cooking and karaoke, keeping the town’s youth off the streets and gainfully employed.

But while they enjoy regular get-togethers three nights a week, part-timer Ayesha has her eyes on another date – March 2012, when the funding for her own job runs out.

However, thanks to another big fundraising effort, she is within £5,000 of earning herself another year’s contract. “It’s a strange thing, I suppose, having to find the money to keep myself in a job,” said Ayesha.

“But it looks like we’re going to make it. Local firm Kilfrost has again come forward with a valuable donation and now I only need another £5,000 by next March, so, fingers crossed, it looks like we’re going to do it.

“And I really want to be able to carry on with what we’ve got in place. It has surpassed my expectation and gone absolutely brilliantly.

“I didn’t think at first that it was going to be as valuable to them as it’s turned out to be. I thought we would probably get our regular members down here, but I hadn’t realised how many new young people would access it.”

Ayesha’s magnificent efforts have earned praise and support from all sides in Haltwhistle.

Haltwhistle Partnership project officer Yvonne Probert said: “Ayesha really has done a marvellous job and we want her to be able to stay on after March.

“Happily, it looks like we are going to be able to keep her on. We are getting very close to the target.”

Ayesha added: “What we want now is to get some money for an outreach worker to go out on the streets one night a week to meet those young people who aren’t coming to us yet.

“And we want in 2012 to perhaps open an extra midweek day.

“In the long term, we would really like to have it steady for, say, three years, because this time next year we’ll probably be thinking exactly the same thing as we are this year.

“We’ve really developed like a family, and at Christmas, for example, we went ice-skating at the Centre for Life in Newcastle with other young people from Allendale, Bellingham, Newbrough and Haydon Bridge.

“The Sheriff of Northumberland visited us again, and we had Christmas parties and all sorts.

“It’s just fantastic to see how well it has all developed – and I want to keep on developing it.”

I really want to be able to carry on with what we’ve got in place. It has surpassed my expectation