Working with a group of students from High Tunstall College of Science for over 5 weeks, we facilitated in developing an idea of a campaign they could carry out as Junior Campaigners. This group consisted of 10 young people, who all had a passion to help improve the mental health of older generations who live in care homes over the Christmas period.

After a discussion on how best to help the residents, the young people decided on making 20 mental health wellbeing packs; personal hygiene items, colouring and puzzle books, hot water bottles, selection packs of chocolates, hot chocolate sachets, blankets, and so much more. They also all made individual heartfelt Christmas cards to go in each pack, to make them more personal.

Then came the decision of where the packs should go to – They ended up choosing Lindisfarne Care Home in Hartlepool, as it’s local to their school.

The young people designed a poster to go along with this, and were very proud of what they had done throughout the whole campaign. “I feel so proud of us for doing this. The elderly might have no one to buy them Christmas presents – We might have just made someone’s day”.

While YFNE staff dropped the packs off at the home, the staff extended their sincere appreciation for all the young peoples hard work and care, they stated “it is nice to see young people thinking about the elderly. Please send them all our thanks!”.

At High Tunstall College of Science, we have been working with a fantastic group of young people over the months November and December in developing an idea of what they would like to campaign about for the project junior campaigners. In the group we had 8 young people who decided that they would like to campaign about homelessness in the local area as this is what the group were passionate about! The group started off by deciding that they would like to deliver care packages to the local homeless shelter which was local to the school. The young people wanted to make up 20 care packages 10 being for females and 10 for males. The young people then decided that they would like to do this for the campaign the young people then came up with items that they would like to put inside each of the care packages. These are some of the items that that the young people came up with; Hats, Gloves, Socks, Blankets, Soaps, Hand wash and foods such as Pot noodles and easy open canned food like carrots alongside so much more! The young people came to the decision that they would like to deliver the care packages to Cornerstone Homeless shelter and with it being near Christmas time the young people also came up with the idea of making up Christmas cards for the shelter and also a poster to put up around the school to spread the awareness of homelessness in the local area.

One of the young people stated “I feel like I’m really making someone’s day actual someone’s year by making these care packages for the shelter.” Once the staff had dropped of the packs at Cornerstone homeless shelter they were extremely thankful for all the hard work the young people had do “It’s amazing to know that young people think about what is happening outside of schools and in the local area for the homeless and I’m so happy to have their support please send them all our thanks from the team at Cornerstone.”