Thursday 28-05-2020 - 09:00

In partnership with the university, the Connecting Kids project has already helped thousands of local young people access essential educational resources. 

Last month we invited our student volunteers to work with local young people online, to provide essential supplementary teaching. Since then, the project has grown enormously.

In addition to our Schools volunteers, there are now hundreds of students volunteering their time, to teach online and help local young people achieve their educational goals. A pilot program will be run in August in the hope of a full roll out in September/October.

To minimise the impact of school closures, it is also necessary to ensure equal access to essential resources such as stationery and technology. Nik Marsdin from our Schools team has been working alongside the university and key community partners to provide much-needed, educational resources.

Thanks to substantial donations from the university and local businesses including Wilkos, thousands of local young people will receive stationary resource packs. Over 1500 stationary packs have already been put together by the team, with another thousand requested by local primary schools. 

Part of these stationary packs includes colouring sheets of local landmarks, as lovingly sketched by our student members as part of The Sketch Project. We received an incredible response after inviting our members to indulge in some sketching. In fact, we received so many entries that your student sketches are being turned into a colouring book!

This entirely student-created collection of sketches will be put together by our student Graphic Designer, Joy, to create something really special for local children. 

 

The next phase of the project will be to extend support to local secondary schools and distribute hundreds of laptops to support local families, with free unlimited internet thanks to Vodafone. 

The mentoring network with schools is also set to begin very soon, as logistics are finalized. Plus, Project in the Box has begun taking ideas from academics and PhD students for 'home projects' that students can complete.