Charity Insights

It is my last day at RECLAIM! I have had a great four weeks here. As the charity is so small everyone is really close and have made me feel very welcome. I will be sad to leave!

During my last week I have conducted two interviews with two 14 year olds from the Moss Side and Gorton projects. They were very thoughtful and helpful and glad to be involved in my work. I have used this information as a case study for my evaluation for RECLAIM. I have finished writing up my report, hopefully this will highlight the good work RECLAIM is doing with young people and also identify ways in which the projects can be improved.

We also took a group of young people to Bradford as part of the summer program. We went to the media museum where you could produce your own version of BBC News and then went to sample some local cuisine and the oldest Indian restaurant in Bradford. I think the young people are creative and intelligent and RECLAIM is needed to encourage this and give them the opportunities that they may not otherwise have.

I hope I have contributed towards RECLAIM’s amazing work and hope to work here again in the future.

Read Week 4 at RECLAIM in full

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.

Read Week 3 at RECLAIM in full

It is the start of the summer programme at RECLAIM and there are some exciting trips organised for all the young people. Yesterday we went bowling and I took the opportunity to talk to some of them about their experience on RECLAIM to gather some information for my evaluation. Most of them were intelligent and engaging and were keen to give me some useful information but as you can imagine it is sometimes difficult to get 14 year olds to fill out a boring questionnaire or something similar! However I did get some interesting points and put them together in the first part of my evaluation and we had a fun afternoon bowling!

Over the next week I will be conducting another focus group and helping out with some of the other activities on the summer program. I also aim to do some one on one sessions in order to produce a case study on one or two of the young people I have met as part of my evaluation.

Generally my time at RECLAIM has been positive so far. It is so small there is only about 6 or 7 people in the office in one day but everyone has a really good attitude and is completely dedicated to the charity. It has a relaxed friendly atmosphere, some of the young people from the projects also pop in to say hi from time to time.

Read Week 2 at RECLAIM in full

My Charity Insights is at RECLAIM, a relatively new charity based in Manchester. RECLAIM works with young people who have been recognised as talented but may need some support to realise their potential. It encourages communication between young people and adults in communities in Greater Manchester in order to build the confidence and voices of the young people involved. One of RECLAIM’s main tag lines is enabling young people to be heard, be seen and lead change in their communities.

My project is based on research, outreach and evaluation.  I will be running focus groups with some of the previous participants in order to evaluate their projects and give some feedback so changes can be made to the upcoming projects. I will conduct a case study of 2 people from the focus groups to give more of an insight into the impact RECLAIM has had on their life and to highlight where improvements could be made.

So far this week I have been planning the focus groups and contacting some of the young people we want to be involved. I contacted a library and a monastery in Manchester for interesting spaces to run these focus groups. There are also a lot of upcoming events over the summer such as BMXing and picnic’s and music and musuem’s that I am hoping to get involved in. So far a very good start!

Read Week 1 at RECLAIM in full