Week two

Wow what a week! Where do I begin? At the beginning maybe Charlotte?

So after our meetings last Monday the work just began to pour in, the poster still needed to be completed, project proposals needed to be produced, consultations needed to be devised and action plans written!
In all honesty I had done as much as I could of done on the poster by this point and was only really offering suggestions to Josh, my fellow intern who took the lead on the posters design. My main focus then became putting a proposal together for the Toolkit. I was aware that I wanted the young people’s planning committee to look over my proposal especially because I would be working closely with them in collecting the data that would inform the toolkit, so I set about writing a proposal that would be accessible to them. My aim was not to appear patronising whilst still explaining what was meant by the word toolkit and why such a document needed to be produced.

Whilst writing the toolkit it became clear to me that although I knew what information I wished to include in the toolkit I was not yet 100% sure on how I wanted to gather that information, what questions I needed to ask or what methodologies I would use. Even in the final draft of the proposal there was a lack of detail with regards to specific questions and methods. That is why I have decided to write up a second more scientific proposal including details of how I intend to collect all the data, that should be completed by the end of this week.

Alongside proposal writing I have also drafted a letter to organisations asking for any materials they have promoting the positive work and achievements of young people, the materials will be used to decorate spaces being used during the conference in September. I have also collected the names and contact details for every school in the Preston area so they may be contacted with regards to some of their pupils taking part in the conference.

Thank you if you’re still with me!! I promise this is the less boring bit :P

So apart from being an excessively productive week in the office, work conducted outside the office offered up some very exciting insights. A meeting with Cath Larkin for example allowed me to develop new skills in planning and time management, a meeting with Yasmin and zarah from the centre of volunteering gave me faith that my degree was very useful and I had defiantly increased my skill base in the voluntary sector and a meeting with the interpreting volunteers introduced me to a whole new world of languages and technology I was clearly to ignorant to of ever even considered before.

The stand out event for me this week however had to be the Sheffield 4th international conference "celebrating childhood diversity". Although I definitely picked up some obvious DOs and DON'Ts for our conference and did not gain a massive amount of knowledge on youth participation I did gain A LOT from meeting so many interesting people from so many different cultures. I learnt about the education system in America, Child Labour across the world, the effect of migration on young children, indigenous young people in countries such as New Zeeland and Australia along with a number of case studies of SEN young people here in the UK.

 (gifts from an Australian woman working to provide education for Aboriginal communities)

Although not all the talks made an impact the ones that did, really did and now I am looking forward more so than ever to our conference in Sept because if adults simply reporting on young people from across the world can be so interesting I can only imagine how insightful, interesting and important talks will be when delivered by the young people themselves!!

I am graduating this Thursday and I am taking a few days of to celebrate XD so I apologise if I do not post for a while but for now I shall leave you with this short simple truth :)

No culture can live if it attempts to be exclusive.
Mahatma Gandhi

Charlotte x