A group of teenagers hope to give young people a good name by keeping the tradition of carol singing alive.
The teenagers, from the Headington area of Oxford, hope their door-to-door carol singing for charity will make people realise that not all teenagers are bad.
The group have been carol singing around the houses in their community for the past five years, and have raised hundreds of pounds for charity. This year they raised a record £250 for Rethink Mental Illness.
Imogen Charvill Ryall, 17, a sixth-form pupil at the Cherwell School, in Marston Ferry Road, said: “This is something we’ve been doing each year since 2007, when we decided we wanted to raise some money for the NSPCC.
“About 10 of us got together and we went carol singing all over Headington, Quarry and Shotover.
“We were so surprised, people were really generous. Usually we have quite a lot of people slamming the door on us, or shutting the curtains, but not one person did that this year.
“It’s a dying tradition, which we wanted to keep up.
“We think that teenagers get quite a bad press. We were talking about it when we were carol singing. But we’re showing that not all young people are a rabble.
“We’re doing something just because it’s fun and it’s all for other people. We want to show people shouldn’t stereotype us.”
There are now around 30 teenagers in the carol singing group. They usually raise around £100 each December and this goes to a different charity every year. In the past they have donated to Amnesty International, Water Aid and a Burmese orphanage.