Delroy Ellis is now a well respected member of the Gloucester Community and a local figurehead when the subject of young people is under discussion, however this was not always the case.

Delroy grew up living with his mother who was no longer with Delroy’s Dad. Excluded from school, Delroy got involved in petty crime, committing robberies and began selling drugs as well as taking them. Delroy was, by his own admission, a ‘bad boy with challenging behaviour’ when he was growing up.

Delroy was fortunate enough in 1996 to be chosen to visit Jamaica on a Youth Exchange Programme funded by Price Charles. When Delroy’s father heard about this he asked Delroy to bring back some photos of his family who were living out there. Although Delroy didn’t see his father often, he agreed and when he came back he visited his father in Bristol and took the photos for him.

As he left his fathers home that day, his fathers parting words to Delroy were ‘Just promise me whatever you do in your life, become a leader not a follower’. Four weeks later Delroy’s Dad passed away from a drug related illness.

These words and his fathers death had a huge impact on Delroy and working too make the right decisions he decided to get involved with the Princes Trust, and the rest as they say is history. An internship for the Princes Trust led Delroy to become a Youth Worker at Star 66 before setting up Increase The Peace, with the help of a lovely lady at the Council called Pat Dabbs who supported the charity for many years afterwards.

Delroy has been working within the charity now since 2008 and remains as positive and passionate about Increase The Peace as he was on its very first day.

Delroy says the charity is there to give young people hope.

‘Some of the young kids we work with don’t have their mum or dad on the scene. They’re in foster care, in and out of the system. We just want to give them an opportunity to know there are people out there who care, that we can try and steer them down the right path rather than going down the path of crime and drugs.

We’re not about cure,  we’re about prevention. If we can prevent young kids from going down that road of crime and drugs, give them somewhere safe that they can express themselves in an environment with professional people who are going to support them and give them advice’