Since my last blog there has been quite a few events at RECLAIM. Firstly I conducted one of my focus groups with some girls from the Gorton project last year. The group was of about 5 or 6 girls who were very willing to express their opinion and give us some useful information. I arranged for the group to take place at the Gorton Monastery; a beautiful building that has recently been restored in the slightly disadvantaged area of Manchester. The girls had been there before and had an existing relationship with the director, Elaine. Elaine took time to speak to the girls about an exciting re development opportunity at the monastery and an old run down community center down the road. From the focus group RECLAIM and the monastery got some very interesting feedback about what we can do to support and help young people in Gorton.
The summer programme for the young people involved with RECLAIM continued with a trip to Liverpool. We took 12 young people on the train to Liverpool to see some of the museums including the International Slavery Museum. The slavery museum is very interesting as it explores Liverpool’s part in the slave trade and encourages you to think about you heritage and how your ancestors were involved in this monumental part of history. The trip was generally successful and the young people seemed to enjoy themselves and learn a lot from the museums. We also managed to have time to have more of a look round Liverpool where we went clothes shopping, had lunch at a Lebanese restaurant and went into a traditional sweet shop.
Another stream of work that I am working on is a program run by Sky called Stand Up Be Counted. Sky are asking for 16 – 25 year olds to make a short video about something they are passionate about. These videos are featured on the website and also may be on Sky News. This is a great opportunity for young people to be heard which is RECLAIM’s main aim and also some good publicity for RECLAIM which is a very small charity. I have been contacting some of the older people RECLAIM are in touch with and have had some very interesting, thoughtful and intelligent responses from them.
During my last week at RECLAIM I will conduct some one to one interviews with two of the RECLAIM graduates. This will form a case study for my evaluation and report on the Gorton Girls and Moss Side Boys 2013 projects. I will finish writing my report and hopefully provide RECLAIM with a useful and insightful piece of work that will highlight the good work RECLAIM have done and also where there is room for improvement. I have set up an online survey for the past RECLAIM graduates which has received some very interesting responses which I will include in my report.
Also the next trip on the summer programme is a trip to Bradford which I will be helping out with. We will visit the media museum and also sample some of Bradford’s famous Indian cuisine at one of the first Indian restaurants in the country.