At the end of last year Wheatsheaf Trust and Portsmouth-based charity Motiv8 held a photography competition for the young people on their Youth Inclusion Programme and earlier this month the results were announced at the Omega Centre in Portsmouth.

The young people from Gosport and Portsmouth were given a disposable camera with instructions to take photos focusing on issues in the local community that they felt were of real importance.

Some insightful and thought-provoking images resulted with topics including bike theft, the good and bad aspects of CCTV, ASBO notices, school uniform, litter and the importance of recycling.

The winners collected their prizes at the award ceremony at the Omega Centre.

First prize, a Sony digital camera, went to Daniel Moresby-White for his collection of photos.

Second prize was awarded to Connie Todd and she received £50 worth of High Street vouchers, and £25 vouchers went to Chloe Bowell and Lauren Lane who tied for third prize for their portfolio of photos.

Daniel Moresby-White said, ‘I enjoyed taking part. It was something different to do and I definitely want to do a lot more photography.’

Wheatsheaf Project Manager Michelle Power said, ‘the photography competition has been a really good opportunity for these young people to consider issues that matter to them in their local area.’

Wheatsheaf Trust runs the Youth Inclusion programme in partnership with Motiv8 in the Portsmouth and Gosport areas of Hampshire. The programme, funded by the Department of Work and Pension’s Youth Sector Development Fund, works to engage young people at risk of anti-social behaviour in positive activity and to help them progress and move into education, training or employment.

For more information about the programme contact Michelle at Wheatsheaf on 023 8023 7662 or see our Youth page.

The photo at the top shows Dan receiving his prize. 

         Connie

         Chloe

On Friday 14 August we held a highly successful women’s self-development workshop at Wheatsheaf House.

Eight women attended the workshop which was run for mothers and women who play a primary role in the lives of young people on the youth inclusion programme in the Southampton area.

The focus of the day was to address issues of self-confidence, to raise self-awareness in communication styles, and to introduce effective methods of dealing with their teenagers’ challenging behavior - for example learning to be assertive and say no! 

A life-coach and part-time teacher delivered the session, tailoring it to the specific needs of the group. These had been pre-assessed through individually engaging with each of the women prior to the workshop. To make the day as fun and relaxed as possible activities involved interactive flipchart exercises, cartoon demonstrations and small group work, along with sharing a healthy buffet lunch!

Although unconfident and hesitant to start with by the end of the day all the women reported back with very positive feedback.

Jan said: ‘I never believed [my son] would benefit from this [youth inclusion] programme. He’s like a different boy since he’s started with you. You have far exceeded all my expectations. That is the sole reason I would be interested in more workshops like this to help me deal with my son better.’

Another mother mentioned: ‘The stuff on passive and aggressive behaviour was really good. I can see now how my behaviour is affecting [my daughter] and why she can get angry and can kick off at me.’

The women found the workshop so useful and valuable that they asked unprompted to attend future sessions to help them develop further on a personal level and in their parenting skills.   

In response we will continue to organize workshops like this - watch this space for those to be held every Monday in September!

The youth inclusion project is supported by the Youth Sector Development Fund Youth Inclusion Programme (YIPS).

Wheatsheaf’s new youth inclusion programme has now held three workshops to help raise the aspirations of 14 NEET (Not in Employment, Education or Training) young people.

The idea behind the workshops was to inspire the young people to think as creatively as possibly about their future, with a key aim of conveying how education, commitment and reliability will help these young people to reach and sustain a future in their employment goals.

Some of the young people had a clear idea of how they wanted to go forward in life, others were less sure and to help the young people identify with how goals can be achieved the life of Gordon Ramsey was used as a role model.

This well known and above all successful chef was specifically chosen as someone with a background the young people could relate to, with his  difficult up- bringing, his dreams of playing professional football being taken away from him, and  his self- inflicted career mistakes, but who has gone on to achieve great professional success.

When asked what it took for Gordon to get himself where he is today, the young people identified the underlying traits of hard work, grit, determination, and an improved attitude  towards work, as well as being prepared to get things wrong sometimes.

One young person said, “Yeah, it’s true he messed up by getting himself sacked but he had to swallow his pride and start from the bottom again. Otherwise he would just be bumming around not doing anything with his life still”. 

The workshops are part of the activities held during the project’s four week induction period when the young people participate in a combination of positive fun activities and developmental workshops.

The challenge now for these young people is to put these values into practice in areas they are interested in and Wheatsheaf will be there, continuing to support them as they make their decisions.

The youth inclusion project is supported by the Youth Sector Development Fund Youth Inclusion Programme (YIPS).