YAT Pack And Away!
Vinvolved Herts descended on Danbury Outdoor Centre in Essex last weekend, bringing along 22 young people from all over Hertfordshire to deliver our unique Youth Action Training!
The YAT Pack, a twelve hour training course designed to prepare young people for every aspect of the project planning process, from writing press releases to applying for funding, was delivered in just two days in this pilot project.
Young people worked in groups, planning a virtual community project which included an Arts Festival, Intergenerational Fair, an LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual or Transgender) Visual Arts Exhibition and a series of Inclusive Dance Workshops.
Created by the young people themselves, the projects addressed issues that they felt passionate about, and the enthusiasm for these projects as the weekend went on was infectious!
From all walks of life, these youngsters were brimming with enthusiasm and energy towards positively contributing towards their community. The weekend was packed full of debate, especially as the young people discussed heatedly their views on representations of young people in the media and their feelings about stereotypes.
The course combined a range of indoor resource-based tasks and outdoor activities, using exercises such as role play and game shows as a way to keep the training engaging and interactive. The weekend ended with a Dragon’s Den style pitch, in which the young people presented their project ideas to each other creatively using a dance piece, a play and a chat show format.
The winners of the pitch, dance group Express Yourself, bid for an inclusive dance and performing arts workshops for young people with extremely low confidence and self esteem. Their programme included a peer mentoring scheme, in which students of the project worked towards growing enough confidence to tutor their peers. The project would work in connection with organisations such as ‘Youth Talk’ and ‘Youth Connexions’ to ensure the students were emotionally supported throughout their experience. It was incredible how mature the group’s approach was to the project, and as the group engaged in activities such as a SWOT analysis and NAOMI planning, their ideas were developed and refined.
As a way of bonding the group we spent Saturday evening playing a ‘Friends like These’ game show, in which teams undertook challenges such as a balloon relay race, After Eight chocolate eating challenge, and a dustbin liner fashion show!
In the young people’s feedback it was highlighted how much the group had come together throughout the course of the weekend. One young person claimed the course had ‘widened my understanding of others’, and another described that she had ‘made loads of new friends and met so many interesting people.’
Feedback also seemed to recommend that the course had successfully fulfilled its aims in giving the young people the skills to facilitate their own project from start to finish. Elizabeth de Bruto from Dacorum claimed the training was:
‘Absolutely brilliant! So inspiring, they focus and touch on so much and give you ideas you never thought of.’
Another young person claimed it ‘got me motivated and gave me a new perspective on things.’ Sanaa Mufti from St.Albans explained how the training ‘made me think and analyse the project planning stages in detail.’
In a self assessment evaluation, it was also emphasised that almost all the participants felt their confidence had increased as a result of attending the training. One young person described how they were ‘so nervous but everyone was so nice…I have gained so much confidence.’ Another participant claimed ‘I always wanted to do it before now, but I was never sure how to…I now have confidence in my ability to execute a project.’
The YAT Pack pilot then, seems to have been a success and we very much hope the young people will continue to work on their projects independently with our ongoing support. The most obvious thing to come out of the training for us at vinvolved is that we have some extremely gifted and motivated young people in Hertfordshire, who with the right training and support will create some truly fantastic work!
YAT Pack Residential
24 young people will be spending this weekend (24th and 25th July 2010) on a YAT Pack training residential learning all about how to set up and run their own community projects.
Vinvolved Youth Volunteering Adviser Nicole Connors said: “We’ve had so many young people requesting YAT Pack training so we decided it would be much easier and quicker to bring them all together on a residential. This means that they can get started on their projects sooner rather than later.”
Watch this space for photos and feedback from the residential soon.
For more information on the YAT Pack see http://www.watfordymca.com/vinvolved_youthaction.php
For our older news stories, please see our News Archive