April Newsletter

Hello,

Welcome to the April edition of Young TimeBank's Newsletter - keeping you updated with all the highlights from our projects and Volunteer Facilitators.

As always, thanks to all our volunteers for all the work that you do. If you'd like to be featured in a future newsletter, please send us your stories and photos from you and your students - we'd love to hear from you.

Highlighted Project

Featured school: At William Morris S.E.N. School in Waltham Forest, London
Project: Virtual tour of the school

Volunteer Facilitator Jake Fisher has been working with the Student Council to make a virtual tour for the school website. It will give prospective parents and pupils a chance to experience the school. The project is close to completion and everyone involved is extremely pleased with what's been achieved.

Citizenship Teacher Christine Booker said:

"The students have gained so much from it, the knowledge of how to use the equipment, and also it gave them a lot of confidence. Before they were a bit afraid of the task, but now they can walk around school filming confidently and giving video commentary."

Hopefully, the film will be ready soon after Easter, so watch this space for further info.

Volunteer Voices

This month, we're featuring Luna Dizon's insights into being a Volunteer Facilitator, as told to Jake Fisher. Next month we'll hear from Jake about his project.

So, what was the project?

Lunch queues! The group agreed straight away that they wanted to do something about improving their lunch queues as they were fed up of waiting and being pushed around just to get fed. They decided to make a film to highlight the issue to the whole school and open it up to fellow students as well as teachers to give their views and suggestions for a better and fairer system.

How did you find the group you had?

Ambitious and excitable! They knew straight away what they wanted to do and were full of ideas. They just needed support in terms of focusing their vision and staying realistic. They're a small group who already know each other well, get on and have their own ideas about what they each wanted to do so it was easy picking roles.

Did you get much support from the teachers?

Loads! Their School Council teacher was my contact and he really helped drive the project in between sessions. I found it really valuable keeping in regular contact with him in between sessions.

What did you find most difficult and why?

Not being a student and not being a teacher! It took me a while to figure out how to best support the group - without leading the group and without shouting out my own ideas. I learned quickly that asking for support from the contact teacher and YTB is much better than trying to work it out on your own.

What do you think you have learned from the experience?

Luna Dizon Asking for help is a good thing! as it's quite likely there are people out there who know the answers or can just reassure you.

I've also learned loads from the group - their growing confidence is inspiring. And, although I was initially a bit disappointed that the issue they picked was about lunch queues, I really value their judgement and love how clever they've been about using the project to produce some real change that will directly affect them and their peers.

What would your advice be to anyone doing this in the future?

It's all about the students! Their project and their ideas. What they need you for is to help them harness their energy to achieve their aims. And have fun!

Opportunities and Resources

Junction49.co.uk is a TimeBank website where young people submit ideas on how they want to make a difference and change their communities or the wider world. This can be in the form of a campaign, an event or other project. Staff on the Junction49 helpdesk and other young people provide support to turn those ideas into reality.

If you want to do more to showcase your young people's project and take it to a wider audience, then why not encourage them to post it on the Junction49 website? They may receive messages of support, advice or inspiration from other young people trying to make a difference.

If you're under 25 years old, you can also become a Junction 49 Mentor. Junction49 will match you with a user of the site, and you will help them plan their event, campaign or project. As it all happens online, you can volunteer from your sofa at a time convenient to you!

For further information about becoming a Junction49 mentor then please email Sarah via help@junction49.co.uk or call 0845 313 8385.

If your under 25 and mentoring isn't your thing, but you like the sound of Junction49, then visit them at www.junction49.co.uk to submit your idea for an event, campaign or project to make a difference - or get involved in someone else's.

The Final Word

We've started sharing advice for new Volunteer Facilitators from our volunteers' end of project evaluations. This months it comes from Volunteer Facilitator Michael Luczynski, who facilitated film projects on discrimination in Manchester. Michael says:

Luna Dizon
"Go in with an open mind as to what will be addressed. Allow and wait for this to come as it may surprise you!"

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

Best wishes,

The Young TimeBank team

Email: helpdesk@timebank.org.uk
Phone: 0845 347 9363

Young TimeBank is a TimeBank initiative | TimeBank registered Charity No.1073831