77 students from Level 1 Sports & Public Services, Level 2 Sports and Level 3 Sports and Public Services took part in the Palace for Life Foundation’s NCS programme which was successfully delivered during December.
This involved taking part in two days of activities, followed by a three-day virtual course.
The students actively engaged in activities from workshops, escape rooms, fitness, DJ skills and public speaking, before moving into the virtual world to learn vital skills about CVs, money management, online identity and much more.
Designed for 16 and 17 year olds, the NCS experience aims to give young people an idea of what they want from their future and helps to prepare them with new skills and experiences.
The group also took part in virtual presentations on Equality, Diversity and Inclusion awareness by Palace for Life’s Education, Training and Employment Manager & Race Equality Lead Cigdem Turkan, the Amy Winehouse Foundation and a careers talk from Riz Rehman of the PFA.
The final part of the course was for all students to plan and deliver their own social action projects, which was made even more challenging because they had to deliver these online.
Group 1 raised awareness on helplines and coping mechanisms for young people experiencing mental health. This was inspired by the Amy Winehouse Foundation.
Group 2 are raising money for the foodbank charity ‘Meals on Wheels’
Group 3 created an Instagram page to raise awareness for children in care that acts as a hub for young people to find charities who will support anyone that needs advice or help.
Joe Sheerer from the Amy Winehouse Foundation was full of praise for the young people who took part: “The students were a joy to work with! So engaging, they were brilliant. It must be so hard for them to do this online but they were great.”
NCS Project Coordinator Sara Jukes added: “It was such a great way to end the year, it was a really difficult environment for the young people but they adapted extremely well. The ideas they put forward for their social action projects were very impressive and showed how much they wanted to make a genuine impact.”
Find out more about NCS.
