25 August 2011

Over the past 20 weeks over 60 volunteers have taken part in our first run of Southend Priorities volunteering projects. Southend Priorities are one off volunteering projects that have been based upon current issues that young people have identified to us, and a project is designed around that research.

The first projects were based on 3 topics: Global Equalities, Housing & Economic use of food. Separately, each group met weekly to research and take part in activities based around their projects theme, working towards creating a final informational product.

The foodie project worked with Chef Justin, cooking weekly and learning about food, the environment and how other countries work with food. They finished by created recipe cards with hints on tips about shopping on a budget and making the most over the leftover in the cupboards. You can read about the recipe cards here.

The Equalities project met with key organisations involved with international work, and closer to home such as Save the Children, YCare International, Amnesty International, a Doctor that works in Tanzania & a film maker who works with child amputees from war in Serria Leone. After learning about how young people in other countries live their lives they put together a presentation that was shown to other groups of young people. You can see the presentation here.

Finally the Housing project worked on creating a book called Leaving Home: The First Steps, for young people who are thinking about moving out for the first time, researching advice and contacts to go in the book. Meeting with Southend-on-Sea Borough Council, highstreet banks, landlords and organisations such as The Citizens Advice Bureau, information was compiled into a 16 pages booklet. 

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The projects were funded by Youth in Action and came together last week to celebrate their achievements at an event at Southend YMCA's Eco Hub, certificates were presented, known as Youth Passes which are generated by the European Commission. Volunteers were given the opportunity to learn about what the other groups had been doing, and the new volunteering opportunities that were available to them.

You can read testimonials from some of the Southend Priorities volunteers here.

If you'd like to find out more about Southend Priorities or our other volunteering projects email This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .