About Yellow Submarine

Yellow Submarine believes people with learning disabilities and autism deserve to live life to the full.We are a small award-winning charity which prides itself on helping the most disadvantaged people in Oxfordshire build their confidence, independence and a sense of self-worth. At the same time we aim to meet the huge need for respite for families and carers.What makes us different? Fresh and innovative approaches. A can do attitude. Willingness to go the extra mile. Staff and volunteers who are truly passionate about making things better.

For young people (11-18), we run an ambitious school holiday programme, youth clubs, a breakfast club and residential holidays. Our goal is to help teenagers transition into adulthood and therefore able to access mainstream services, socialise independently and engage in meaningful work. In short, to be able to ‘do more’ but to ‘need less’ from the state or charities such as ours.

For adults, we provide real-world training and employment opportunities, a group called Launchpad for young adults to peer-support one another to socialise & use public transport independently and residential holidays throughout the year, which are often young adults’ first sustained time away from home.

Our success achieving our goals has been greatly helped by award-winning social enterprise cafes we run in Oxford and in Witney, which are co-staffed by people with learning disabilities. We have consistently been the number 1 rated restaurant in Oxford on TripAdvisor in 2015. People enter the cafés because of the quality of the coffee & food. It just ‘so happens’ that some 45,000 customers have left the door with a different perception of ‘disability’.

We need volunteers from all types of backgrounds – volunteers who are at school, volunteers who are retired. We need volunteers who could go to the pantomime, volunteers who are creative, volunteers who can join a game of football. We need volunteers who can drive, volunteers who can cook, volunteers who can encourage others. We need volunteers in the daytime and in the evenings, in term time and in the school holidays.