NCS is a social development initiative for 16 and 17-year-old volunteers, and in normal years the Foundation would have organised a residential, with last year’s being spent in Wales.
With Covid-19 restrictions making that impossible, this year the Foundation organised a fortnight’s activities as part of the NCS ‘Keep Doing Good’ programme, including a week of workshop and discussions followed by heading outdoors for the gardening project, which included burying a time capsule to be uncovered by a future NCS group in ten years’ time.
Harina Basra, Education Officer with Wolves Foundation, explains more.
“NCS ‘Keep Doing Good’ brought together a group of like-minded young people from across the city who were all passionate about developing themselves and creating change in their community,” says Harina.
“The programme saw the young people discussing their mental health and the impact lockdown has had on this, learning about social action and then applying this through the creation of their own educational videos, raising awareness for mental and physical health.
“The group have also undertaken a gardening project at Aldersley Leisure Village and buried a Covid-19 time capsule where they created a snapshot of life today to be uncovered by a future NCS group in 10 years’ time.”
The Aldersley project was particularly appropriate given that the site is home to the Foundation’s Arena, which had previously been handed over to the City of Wolverhampton Council to help with their distribution of food parcels to vulnerable residents during the pandemic.
Those links were also strengthened by many Foundation staff volunteering to carry out shopping for elderly Wolverhampton residents during lockdown.
The young people taking part in ‘Keep Doing Good’ certainly did their bit to develop this ethos of volunteering and social action.
“I was really looking forward to taking part in NCS and the residential this summer so I signed up for ‘Keep Doing Good’ to get a taste of what I’ll be doing next summer when I will hopefully get to go on the full NCS programme,” said Shalom Tagoe.
“I’ve got to meet some new people, learn about social action and entrepreneurial skills – stuff I didn’t really think I needed but actually have been really useful.
“It’s been very fun and enjoyable.”
Ajay Kumar added: “I had a great experience on NCS last year so decided to sign up for ‘Keep Doing Good’ as sort of a follow-on to that.
“It’s been a really great opportunity to further improve the skills I developed last year such as my teamwork and presentation skills.”
The Foundation are one of the delivery partners of the NCS programme, and Harina was delighted with the success of ‘Keep Doing Good’.
“It has been fantastic to work with such a motivated and enthusiastic group of young people who, over the last couple of weeks, have got stuck into every activity and have demonstrated the core values of NCS and those of the Wolves Foundation,” she said.
“I am very proud of what they have achieved and the difference they have made in such a short space of time.”
If you’d like to know more about Wolves Foundation, please email foundation@wolves.co.uk or follow @wwfcfoundation on social media. Check out our NCS social action video below.
