Northeast Sight Matters is a local charity that works with children, young people and young adults who experience sight and hearing loss, either from birth or developed over time. NE youth contacted the charity to enquire more about their youth group and organised to meet the NESM team with a group of young people. The group only meet up 4 times per year at different venues with young people coming across the Northeast.
We met the young people for the first time in May 2024 at the Metro Centre Community Venue, we discussed the programme, played games and NE Youth staff spoke to the young people and NESM staff to discuss learning needs and styles. We agreed to meet up again in Seaton Burn, where we discussed what was important to the young people in their lives, what social action project they would like to work on and how will it work. Arts and crafts were used to bring about hopes and dreams of the young people for their future. We agreed to go away and meet up again in December 2024 at the Virgin Bank in Newcastle to go onto the next step of the programme and to decide on what the group would focus on.
The young people came back together in December with lots of ideas on projects that they would like to take forward. Ideas included:
10 young people discussed the above campaign ideas and discussed the fact they had £300 to spend and what programme could make more of a long tern difference. The young people used and developed skills throughout the project such as communication, listening to other people’s views, democracy, budgeting and thinking about the long-term effect of the project and what they can do as a group to develop their ideas even further. The young people designed a tote bag that they can sell at their open day in April 2025, this will use the money to plan an away activity but to also work on their next project to make more of an impact, using the voices of the young people.
“I have had lots of fun with my friends and I met Nikki again at my local youth club which was great. The bags are amazing, and I am looking forwards to selling them on the open day.” Ruby ages 14.