Wednesday 18-10-2017 - 10:05

Young and powerful: those are the words which I would choose to describe the teenagers I have been working with for the past month. This Blog is about how they have consistently pushed me to push myself, and why you should consider working with young people during your time at University.

 

From August-September 2017 I have been working for Catch22, a registered charity which works to transform lives and communities for the better. Catch22 are a delivery partner for the National Citizen Service programme (NCS), which works with young people aged 15-17 to increase their participation in society and create active global citizens. My job, as a Support Mentor, was to work with and facilitate 12 young people through their NCS experience, according to the following NCS principles:

1. Social mixing
2. Challenge
3. Increased Independence & Responsibility
4. Reflection
5. Social action
6. Inspiration

 

Over my four weeks on NCS, I, too, experienced each of these six principles, and much more…

The first week of NCS is an Adventure Week; participants and staff travel to an outdoor education centre where they spend four nights and five days challenging themselves with extraordinary activities. Our particular NCS programme took us to Ingleborough Hall, in North Yorkshire. Here we took part in archery, caving, raft building (and sinking!), orienteering, climbing, hiking, and all manner of team building exercises. For me, the most obvious challenge was the rafting – I do not like getting cold and wet. I do not like being unable to see (whilst I could have worn my glasses on the raft, there would have been little point with all the splashing). But most of all, I do not like the thought of swallowing water which could be full of fish poo. I was not looking forward to rafting.

 

However, when one of the participants in my group, who also had misgivings about rafting, overcame their fear and stepped onto the raft, I felt inspired to do the same. Well, I didn’t exactly step onto the raft, it was more of a crawl, but I did it, and so did they! With week one of NCS completed, I felt enthused, empowered and energised to deliver meaningful sessions to the young people in week two: Enterprise Week.

 

Enterprise Week is all about developing skills and understanding the issues faced by your community. I was delivering NCS in the North East of England, so for week two my group lived in University Halls of Residence in Newcastle upon Tyne. The young people had individual flats, and were expected to budget as a group and prepare their own meals, make their own lunches and, shock horror, get themselves up in the morning ready for activities. They surpassed my expectations in all of these areas!

 

Alongside workshops on voting, opportunities and an inspiring talk from an Olympic athlete (Ben Pipes – captain of the GB men’s volleyball team during the 2012 Olympics), participants spent a day designing their own app. It was heart-warming to see the young people present their apps to the group, as they had all chosen to try and address a problem within society; from healthcare to ethical consumerism to crime prevention, many of the apps were aiming to tackle the big and important issues of our time. The skills and awareness which the young people developed during this week stood them in good stead for the final two weeks of the programme: Social Action.

 

The groups had two weeks to plan, prepare and deliver a social action project of their choice. They pitched their ideas to a panel of staff in order to receive their £30 budget for their projects – and then went out and made it happen! The group which I worked with decided that, in order to address the issue of homophobia in their community, they would raise funds and awareness for The Kaleidoscope Trust, a UK based charity working to uphold the human rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans people internationally. To do this they organised a number of events, including a coffee morning and bake sale, a sponsored dip in the North Sea (brrrrrr) and a quiz night at the local Rugby Club with a raffle. Overall, they did fantastically, raising well over £100 for the Trust and spreading the word far and wide.

 

Once again, I faced challenges during the fortnight, not least of which was the sponsored dip (again, that fear of swallowing water came back to haunt me), but was steadied by the kind words of my team who helped me to overcome it. Similarly, I was encouraged by them to try my hand at baking for the very first time – something which I’d always assumed I would be hopeless at. Well, how wrong I was! Thirty flapjacks, thirty chocolate nests, twenty fairy cakes, and one Victoria sponge later, I couldn’t believe what I’d managed to create from just basic ingredients. This is a skill which I will be making good use of in future, that’s for sure.

 

My time working as a Support Mentor for Catch22, delivering the NCS programme to young people in the North East of England, has been life-affirming and a genuine pleasure. I can’t wait to do it all again next summer!