For the last 12 weeks, facilitators Milicia and Nisha have been supporting a group of young Albanian refugees to put together a talent show promoting their Albanian culture and heritage through dance, songs, poems and a fashion show featuring traditional Albanian dress.   All their efforts paid off when the event took place last Sunday and was a great success, jam packed with spectacle and drama, with a mix of Albanian and English.

Spresha Coordinator Luljetta said:

"Thank you so much for last night, without your support, I don't think we would have had such a successful show...I look forward to working with you on the next project"

 
Manchester highlight

Featured school: Flixton Girls' School
Project: Campaign Taster session

Last week Dave and Lindsay delivered two full days of workshops with the whole of Flixton's Year 7 students. We did activities exploring different elements of efficient teamwork, and looked at what sort of actions young people could take to campaign for change on the things that mattered to them. The young people then had time to design their own campaigns, and produce materials. They then presented back to the rest of the year group. The young people chose an amazing array of issues, including discrimination, climate change, animal rights, racism and bullying.  

Volunteer Facilitators often work alongside YTB staff to provide invaluable support at our taster sessions, and we will let you know about any taster sessions in your area as soon as we know the details.


Volunteer voices

This month we're talking to Volunteer Facilitator Latoyah Dick.

You're just starting your second Young TimeBank project. What made you come back for more?

Watching the kids grow! At the beginning of the project you can talk about ‘group work' but the young people just want to work with their friends and people they know. Then you see their progress as they work together more fluently with people they wouldn't normally work with, and they produce a great piece of work.

You're volunteering again with the same Co-Facilitator from your first project, Amie. How have you supported each other during the projects?

I think we have different personalities and we balance each other out. Amie is a bit more easy-going than me and I tend to crack the whip a bit more! But we always take time to plan each session together, and decide what we need to achieve each week, and that's a real help. We make sure we share out any planning and research we have to do equally between us.

What have you learnt about working with young people?

You need to keep the kids motivated. No matter how much you tell them at the start of the project that you're not a teacher, they can still expect you to lead the project. You need to make them realise that it's their project, and even though you can give them guidance and ideas to get started, ultimately it's up to them to make it work. By the end of the project, they know more about the responsibilities and tasks needed to run their own project.

They need a structure and it helped us to plan, as early as we could, what we needed to achieve each week to finish the project on time. Also, splitting the group into smaller groups to do tasks, and then having them feed back, helped us to get things done more quickly.


Opportunities

The Who Do We Think We Are? educational programme engages primary and secondary school teachers in the exploration of identity, diversity and citizenship with children and young people - in their schools, local communities and nationally. Browse the website for resources relevant to YTB projects on discrimination, or celebrating diversity.

The final word

As part of your end of project evaluation, we ask you all to offer a piece of advice for new Volunteer Facilitators. We thought we'd share some of this wisdom. This month's advice and inspiration come from facilitator Arjun, who says:

"It can be chaotic when working with a group of young people. See that as a positive and use that energy to steer towards creating something positive!"

Please get in touch if you have any questions, queries or suggestions and in the meantime good luck with all you are doing over the next month.


Best wishes,

The Young TimeBank team

E-mail: helpdesk@timebank.org.uk

Phone: 0845 347 9363