A new fellowship to train an aspiring working-class journalist is aiming to help diversify the media landscape while honouring the memory and spirit of Eden Young, who died in an accident last year.

The Eden Young Fellowship for Aspiring Working Class Journalists aims to provide a year-long training and mentorship scheme at the independent online publication Polyester, where Young was a key figure.

Polyester’s editor-in-chief, Ione Gamble, said the editorial team had been overwhelmed by support and love after the loss of their friend and managing editor. The 29-year-old fell from the window of a hotel room in Spain in June last year, having gone to the capital, Madrid, to cover the Primavera festival for the publication.

“When we lost Eden, it was so sudden and so unexpected,” Gamble said. “It felt like there was such huge groundswell of love from the Polyester community, with people emailing me and asking what they could do. It was something I couldn’t like really comprehend so soon after her death, but now we are ready to help create something to really honour her legacy.”

Polyester, which also runs a feminist pop culture podcast, hopes to raise £22,000 to fund the fellowship through an online raffle – which includes designer-donated items from Valentino, Marc Jacobs and Clio Peppiatt – and mentorship and feedback sessions from American actor and writer Tavi Gevinson, comedian and presenter Amelia Dimoldenberg and the Guardian’s Sirin Kale. Winners can also win a range of items and services from haircuts and makeup sessions to cakes and music memorabilia, said Gamble.

Thanks to fundraising from Young’s family and the first 24 hours of the raffle, Polyester has already raised more than a fifth of the funds needed.

“The way we are raising money is so in the spirit of the publication and of Eden,” she said. “It can be easy to be really cynical … but we have been absolutely just blown away by the support.”

The organisation, which is based in Manchester and London, plans to pay the fellowship’s recipient the London living wage four days a week, providing training in all aspects of the publication including writing features, using social media and creating podcasts as well as bespoke mentoring.

“When she started out, Eden had no formal experience and no contacts – but her attitude was very much to figure it out as she went along,” said Gamble. “We basically just want to be able to set someone up to then leave and be able to get a really good job in the industry.”

The team at Polyester hope that the fellowship will provide a small opportunity to provide some much-needed diversity in the media industry. According to Diversity in Journalism 2023, a report from the NCTJ, 72% of journalists come from professional or upper-class backgrounds.

“There is a real lack of opportunities for people from working-class backgrounds in this industry,” said Gamble.

“So much is done by word of mouth or knowing someone and it is so London-centric and that creates an industry that is so unfairly skewed to middle-class and upper-middle-class people. And at the end of the day, that’s going to make our industry a lot more boring, because we’re going miss out on people like Eden.”

The team hope that if they successfully raise the money needed for the fellowship, they can make it into a yearly programme.

“I really hope it gives young working-class people some sort of hope that they can get into this industry,” said Gamble. “But also show them that they can make something happen by themselves, just with their group of friends.”