We turn young people's ideas into action, through creative, youth-led projects.

Case study - Walthamstow School for Girls, London

Film project: body image

A chat show discussing the issues of young people's body image, eating disorders and plastic surgery.

Assistant Headteacher at Walthamstow School for Girls Nigel Straker valued the importance of active citizenship in the curriculum and hoped that Young TimeBank’s youth-led approach would help him to:

“develop self-reliant, self-motivated learners who would take ownership of their own project”

Nigel’s students decided that they wanted to tackle the issues surrounding eating disorders and negative body image. Student Anissa Praquin explained:

“Because this is an all girls school, body image is quite a big thing. We wanted to make sure that people knew they weren’t alone in how they might be feeling.”

Another student Keisha Juanita Brome added:

“We thought it’s an issue that not many young people talk about. We wanted to do more to get young people aware of the issues that young people suffer.”

The group decided that the best way they could tackle this issue was to create a chat show that used real life stories, acted out by the group, to bring the issue to life for their peers and the wider community. By involving some of their peers as the chat show’s ‘studio audience’, and inviting them to ask relevant questions to the guests, they hoped to engage their peers and raise their awareness of body image and eating disorders.

Over the next 12 weeks Nigel’s group of students, with the help of Volunteer Facilitator Tanesha Simms, went about researching, scripting, rehearsing and then filming the chat show called ‘Under Pressure’.

The end product was something that all the students enjoyed making and were really proud of being a part of.

Leda Woloshyn, a student at Walthamstow School for Girls, said:

“…it (the project) showed me that it is possible to act upon issues I feel strongly about. It’s great that Young TimeBank has shown me this and what they do is wonderful…. It was all great fun and if there were any problems we overcame them pretty quickly.”

Ronan Mckenzie added:

“the best bits were doing the interviews and the actual films. I learnt a lot about camera views and how to set up a good chat show.”

Assistant Headteacher Nigel Straker was also delighted with how the project went:

“We have all enjoyed going through the process and the gains are self evident…. It has certainly helped underpin our ‘building learning power strategy’ in developing learners with resilience, reciprocity, reflectiveness and resourcefulness. The students have become better real-life learners.”

The students also appreciated Young TimeBank’s youth-led approach, and the support from their Volunteer Facilitator, Tanesha Simms. Student Anissa Praquin said:

“I enjoyed working with everyone from TimeBank because they didn’t act like teachers and used our ideas instead of their own.”

Tanesha wanted to volunteer due to her passion and desire to work with young people and show them what they are able to achieve with the right help and support. Tanesha noticed a real improvement over the course of the project and a sense of achievement at the end of it.

“The girls came to appreciate the seriousness of the issue (body image and eating disorders) as they went through the filming process. They’re now much more aware of the risks, they know where to look for support and they’re more confident about what they’d do if one of their peers was suffering. The girls didn’t know how to organize themselves at the start but became more responsible – by the end they were getting things done, meeting deadlines, taking the lead and taking initiative.”

Tanesha also gained many skills herself and took a lot away from facilitating the project.

“I’ve developed leadership skills and confidence. I’m more able to guide a group and take control when necessary. I’ll definitely use these skills in the future – I work in Sales and Marketing, if I can get on with a group of teenage girls and win them over then I can get on with anyone – it’ll be much easier with adults!”

With the film now finished the group at Walthamstow School for Girls want to take their chat show to the rest of the school and the wider community in order to raise awareness about the mental and physical problems facing many young people with regards to negative body image, eating disorders and plastic surgery. The first step is screening the film to their peers during a school assembly, which is being arranged as we write this.