Story by Safiya Saeed | Photos by Nathan Dainty
2020 is a very challenging time for us as a nation and a community. Many youth services were stopped or limited and we had to adjust our services in response to the Covid-19 crisis.
During the pandemic Reach Up Youth along with Big Brother and Sisterhood, have tried to stay active by remotely running youth services including providing food hampers, activity packs from Yorkshire Sports, Mental Health advice and activities in the park following Covid-19 guidelines.
We partnered up with many organizations and authorities to help communication with the community. We used the young people’s language skills, volunteering to drop information services, helping with the delivery of food parcels etc.
“Motivating the youth who we used to see on their weekly sessions was very hard’ said Tyrone, the group leader.”
Having safely distanced events, we can physically motivate and measure how much information young people understand about the virus.
Following the imposition of safe distance guidelines, it was vital to have had our traditional BBQ in August this year funded by Healthy Holidays SOAR. We celebrated the new six champions (TJ, Yousuf, Ilyas, Mohamed, Abdusaboor and Umer), and the new young admins (Fahmie & Sami).
The event was great, we had basketball, delicious food, music and also we focused on questionnaires about what young people know about the virus and how can we adapt our youth engagement. We understand Covid-19 will be here for a long time but we are determined to continue our work, reaching out, educating and using activities to fight for good mental health amongst young people.
Our sessions are still running within guidelines, Big Brother sessions aged 12yrs+ are 1-3pm Saturdays at Concord Sports Centre, £1 per session. Sisterhood sessions are still on Sundays 12yrs+ on Sundays at Concord Sports Centre £1 per session 1-3pm. Contact us on reachupyouth@outlook.com
