Lottery grant enables disadvantaged young people to run their own TV centre

Area:

South East England

Programme:

Reaching Communities

Release date:

14 8 2012

A rural East Sussex initiative is now gearing up to invite young people to run an interactive, fully functioning TV station and broadcast their own films online – thanks to over £222,000 of lottery funding. The project is one of eight across the South East region sharing almost £1.7m today.

The team at Entertainment Workshops Limited (EWL) hope the innovative project, which will provide a range of creative, accredited training opportunities across lighting, sound, scripts, interviewing and editing, will help raise aspirations, reduce youth offending rates locally and reduce the number of people who are NEET. It will also give young people, who have either NEET or at risk of dropping out of school, a voice and enable them to gain real work experience related to real job prospects.

To help them along the way, each young person will be supported to search for further training and employment in media-related fields, and work placements through the project’s new apprenticeship scheme. According to a survey conducted with East Sussex Youth Development Service in 2008, 87% of young people said they wanted better job prospects and more job-related training. East Sussex is dominated by small or medium enterprises (94.8% employing between 1-24 employees) meaning there are few opportunities for apprenticeships or job shadowing.

Chairman Dave Byrne, who previously ran own a sound engineering company in which he worked alongside celebrities such as Katherine Jenkins and Girls Aloud, said: “We know there is a need for young people to have a voice, for them to gain real work experience related to real job prospects. We also know there is a huge need to raise aspirations and employment opportunities.

“In some cases school doesn’t work for some young people, and this is why this kind of project engages with them and sometimes helps to uncover deep seated problems. Some young people learn much quicker with a more practical hands-on approach. We focus on the passions of the young people we work with and promote education as a way that they can achieve their goals, leading to incredible results.”

Last year EWL worked with six students from Hillcrest School in Hastings on a similar television-based project.

Mr Byrne said: “In just 14 weeks these six students whose attendance at school was less than 40% increased to 94.7% and are now all are expected to leave with two or three GCSEs - they came to us only one day a week and would have left school with no qualifications originally. Anti-social behaviour from all six has gone completely and they have reintegrated back into normal school life when at one time they just disrupted the class.

“We also trained several students in the use of sound equipment and they performed at three major local festivals supporting professional musicians. This led to a major increase in confidence for each student and vastly improved social skills - one is now at Hastings College undertaking a media production course. He was able to use our industry standard equipment and is now even helping his tutor to learn new things.”

He added: “By providing a web TV station we hope it will be very interactive offering the chance for young people to film local bands and activities they are interested in, then other young people who can't get to these events will get a chance to also see them and stop feeling excluded by their location and lack of transport links.”

Through their lottery grant of £108,889, Caring Altogether on Romney Marsh (CARM) will continue to expand volunteer-led services to reduce social isolation and improve the wellbeing of older people living on Romney Marsh, a sparsely populated area of wetlands in Kent and East Sussex. The proportion of people over the age of 65 will rise from 16% in 2009 to 22% in 2031 - and Romney Marshand its surrounding area is already at the 2031 level. These indicators, and rising life expectancies, point to real isolation and loneliness problems now and in the future.

CARM offers both an 'Our Memories Matter' reminiscence service and a befriending service, in which volunteers visit mainly house-bound older people on a weekly basis. Volunteers are trained in dementia awareness, safeguarding and healthy eating and seek to offer friendship and links to social services as necessary. The reminiscence service is delivered weekly to three local residential care homes whereby everyday objects, music and photos are used to help trigger memories, with people who are excluded or disadvantaged so they can feel part of their community again. A current waiting list for befriending and the opportunity to extend to seven care homes and day centres for reminiscence sessions will be developed as part of this expansion.

Nigel Dixon, Manager of CARM, said: “We are just over the moon to receive this grant which will go such a long way to ensuring that even more numbers of older and vulnerable people on Romney Marsh will enjoy the benefits of our ‘Wellbeing at Home’ services - befriending and reminiscence.  These are powerful volunteer-delivered services – all research and anecdotal evidence confirms that they have a very positive impact on reducing isolation, improving wellbeing and enabling people to remain independent for longer.

“Without this magnificent grant from BIG’s Reaching Communities Programme, we might not in the future hear feedback from volunteers after a reminiscence session such as: “We had a musical afternoon and one lady who does not communicate at all just sung her heart out remembering all the word to the songs,” or comments from an 85-year-old lady befriending client who said “having a befriender is the difference between living and existing”.

Receiving £270,000 from BIG, Peasmarsh parish council will create a community hub to host services and activities and improve the opportunities and social wellbeing of residents. Located in Peasmarsh, East Sussex, the memorial hall will be refurbished and extended to meet modern requirements, providing a meeting place for people to engage in a variety of activities including Guides, an over 60s choir, a luncheon club, youth club, mother and toddler group and Zumba. Other plans include adult education classes.

Today’s funding of almost £1.7m for eight projects across the South East region comes from BIG’s Reaching Communities programme, aiming to help those most in need and build stronger communities.

Sacha Rose-Smith, Head of Big Lottery Fund’s South East region, said: “Positive wellbeing relies on a person’s ability to do things which enthuses them. Whether it is by engaging young people through the creative television project, or engaging older people through befriending and reminiscence sessions, these varied initiatives receiving lottery funding this month will help to improve wellbeing for communities across the South East.

A full list of South East projects receiving funding today:

Further Information

Big Lottery Fund Press Office: 020 7211 1888
Out of hours media contact: 07867 500 572
Full details of the Big Lottery Fund programmes and grant awards are available on the website: www.biglotteryfund.org.uk
Ask BIG a question here: https://ask.biglotteryfund.org.uk
Follow BIG on Twitter: www.twitter.com/BigLotteryFund #BIGlf
Find BIG on facebook: www.facebook.com/BigLotteryFund

Notes to Editors

• The Big Lottery Fund (BIG), the largest distributor of National Lottery good cause funding, is responsible for giving out 40% of the money raised for good causes by the National Lottery.
• BIG is committed to bringing real improvements to communities and the lives of people most in need and has been rolling out grants to health, education, environment and charitable causes across the UK. Since June 2004 BIG has awarded over £4.4bn.
• The Fund was formally established by Parliament on 1 December 2006.
• Since the National Lottery began in 1994, 28p from every pound spent by the public has gone to good causes. As a result, over £28 billion has now been raised and more than 370,000 grants awarded across arts, sport, heritage, charities, health, education and the environment.

Tags