Written by Jo Morrell
July has been busy and productive, with plans now in full swing for a summer of activity across the Imagine This Partnership. First up is the Youth Celebration event as part of children’s week on the 18th August, with Lisa and the Youth Council busy finalising plans, hearing young people’s ideas and piecing together offers from partners to run activities. Also part of Children’s Week will be the Children and Young People’s Awards – a yearly celebration of young people’s talent from across Torbay, run entirely by our Youth Council who have been flat out promoting the event, calling for nominations and gathering donated prizes.
Planning has also taken place for the first of our double loop youth engagement rounds, with partners working with their young people to have their say on issues that matter to them, expressed in ways that they decide. This will lead up to a whole partnership event on 27th September where we hear what young people have to say.
Our impact groups have led to some interesting collaborative thinking this month – our Safer Streets group has led to a new partnership between Safer Communities, Neighbourhood Watch and young people, with a weekly funded workshop run by the national Neighbourhood Watch team rolling our for 16-25 year olds to explore street safety and Torbay and to develop a social action plan leading out of these discussions. Please contact us if you know anyone who’s passionate about this issue and who would like to take a place on this project…
July Fundraising Update
Jo has been busy working on several collaborative funding bids:
- After the Weavers Fund was unsuccessful (for a collaborative project with the Youth Justice Service and partners at People’s Parkfield) we’re exploring other potential funds to go for so we don’t lose these ideas. It has also led to an interesting follow on project opening up potential reparation projects for young people working with the YJS, more of this next month.
- Partners are in early conversation with Jo about the Henry Smith Shout funding, a specific fund for organisations offering advocacy work. Deadline end of August.
- Jo is looking at the Better Youth Spaces fund to see if there’s potential for partnership bid development.
- We’re in touch with Devon Space about a potential regional collaboration around detached youth work.
- The ideas that went into the CAF bid in our Environment impact group are being condensed into a bid to the Joseph Rowntree Better Futures Fund, registration by the 18th August.
To finish, a celebration of assed based community development and the power of the Torbay community. Sometimes we get a lovely little reminder that Imagine This sits in an organisation with Asset Based Community Development running like a stick of rock through it. And that sometimes random acts of kindness and connectedness come along that take your breath away. This week we were contacted by a community builder, who asked did we know any young people who might want a guitar? She had someone who fixes up guitars as part of his own life journey, who wanted to offer them to others. And as it happens, through our impact group conversations, we knew that the Youth Justice Service had some young people keen to learn the guitar. And just like that, through a few phonecalls and connections (and a drop off point offered by our friend Bebe at The Windmill Centre), giving and receiving. Simple. Joyous. What community is all about.