Halloween party!
We had a great time at our spooktastic Halloween party on Saturday 28th October at Moss Side Leisure Centre, where all our newly recruited volunteers got the chance to experience YDV in a hands on environment and get stuck right in with our activities! We had a training day with all our volunteers before our guests arrived, where we discussed ideas of good leadership, got to know each other, and discovered exactly what YDV is all about. We were really impressed with the enthusiasm and ability of our new volunteers and can’t wait to work with them all again soon!
In the afternoon lots of children turned up in fancy dress and everyone was in high spirits, with our new mascot lifesize Disco the Discovery Bear in high demand! Activities we ran included arts and crafts (halloween finger puppets, pet rocks and more), sports activities (horse space hoppers and various sports in our inflatable arena with team bibs) facepainting and temporary tattoos and a jungle-themed bouncey castle. We also had free Halloween themed refreshments available which vanished quicker than a ghost!
We can't wait to return to Moss Side leisure centre for an olympic themed event in January.
Starbucks fund YDV's 'if these walls could talk' project
Young leaders from YDV have recently been successful in attracting funding from the Starbucks Youth in Action fund for a project called 'if these walls could talk' this project will involve 5 diverse groups of young people within a 1 mile radius of our base in Hulme. Each group will work with our leaders and creative volunteers to create some form of art, media or performance focused on a wall, the groups will then create an exciting exhibition event to show their work, meet the other participants and be inspired by creative professionals. If you have a group based in Hulme, Moss Side, Old Trafford or City Centre and would like to participate in this project please contact us for more info.
Check out our latest happenings and find out more about our work at our great new blog
www.youthdiscoveryventures.wordpress.com
YDV win the Orange Rock Corps competition!
Orange is primarily a mobile phone network used in the UK, but they also have launched a massive project on volunteering, and are offering all young people over the age of 16 the chance to claim a £30 voucher to spend on popular website 'ticketmaster' (a website used to purchase tickets for live music events) in return for proving they have done 4 hours of volunteering work.
They also have recently launched a project called 'You Decide'. This is where for one week Youth Discovery Ventures is featured on their website alongside two other organisations that involve volunteering in some way. It's then open to the general public to vote for which one of the three they like the best. At the end of the week, if we have the most votes then we will win some prizes including further exposure of what Youth Discovery Ventures is all about via Orange Rock Corps, a company much bigger than us! This is briliant for getting our name out there and we are really excited to be a part of this!
Update - we won!
Lead 2 Inspire pilot project a huge success!
Lead 2 Inspire is a programme developed by us and we're really excited about its positive impact on young people's leadership skills. The aim of Lead 2 Inspire is to equip participants with the skills and confidence to act as leaders and positive role models within their communities. We partnered with the Warrington Wolves Foundation to run a 5 day Lead 2 Inspire pilot programme for young people age 13-19. The participants undertook ASDAN short course in Leadership (10 credits) and either a sports leaders day certificate or young leaderaward (depending on age). Each day was planned responding to the level and requirements of the group. A variety of teaching and learning styles were used. Opportunity for evaluations and feedback of the activity was offered to the group each day. The learning environment was relaxed and informal. Sessions took place over 5 days from 10am until 4pm. Our feedback has been outstanding with 8 out of 9 participants saying that their overall leadership skills had improved a lot and 1 participant a bit from taking part in Lead 2 Inspire. You can read more about what we got up to on our new blog!
YDV help clean up after Manchester riots!
The YDV team arrived home from their international project in Macedonia to find scenes of violence, crime, rioting and disorder on the streets of Manchester, thankfully they all made it home safely and early this morning (10th Aug) after very little sleep Anna got up early and armed herself with face paints and went to help with the clean up. She met no shortage of inspiring young people out with gloves and brooms to spread a message of resilience and positivity and share the love for our great city, rumour is even the mayor got his face painted! Anna even made it on to the news! Well done everyone, stay positive!
YDV team return from Macedonia
The Youth Discovery Team have just returned from a week long international youth project in Macedonia. The programme was designed to explore gender equality within Europe, updates from the team coming soon!
Big Thanks
To Anish Mistry who kindly donated his time and expertise to build this fantastic new website and the talented Ben Tallon for the awesome artwork he has produced on our behalf, the kind input of our valued volunteers is fundamental in helping us grow and develop.