What’s coming up?
From Friday 23rd to Sunday 25th March 2012, the first Reach Youth Board residential meeting will be held in Wiltshire, where young people will be introduced to the EACH and UK Youth team plus UK Youth’s Personal Achievement Awards and E-safety. Activities will be held to build a team, create the group’s identity and to create, design and record further contributions to the Reach resource.
For more details take a look at our how to get involved page.
What’s been going on?
Reach’s delivery of Creative Courses and Information Gathering Events is gaining much momentum across the four participating authorities of the programme.
Cybersurvey Two: November 2011
Many schools and other young people’s settings got involved in the Reach Cybersurvey in November. Thank you to everyone who took part.
When the results are analysed these will yield vital information on the extent of homophobic, sexist and cyberbullying in the areas that participated.
In Weston-super-Mare, North Somerset young people have been working with the Bath-based media company, Suited and Booted to focus on the “Role of the Bystander” in Homophobic Bullying. Following the initial week of highly successful filmed interviews with young people and an introduction to animation, week two developed with further animation exploration and more filmed interviews. Week three saw the young people further involved in animation work that reflected their views of homophobic bullying and cyberhomophobia concluding with an appraisal of all their work to date.
Carrie, the young people’s Youth Support Worker, commented that “The project was a success giving participants the opportunity to learn more about themselves and other people, sharing these experiences through creative arts whilst learning new skills. The project gave the young people an opportunity to talk freely about their personal experiences of being lesbian, gay, bisexual or heterosexual and to discuss the issue of bullying, within a secure and supported environment.”
The ‘Use Another Word’ campaign championed by Redland Green School in Bristol is progressing well. Building on this year’s Anti-Bullying Week theme “Stop and Think -Words Can Hurt”, the campaign formed the focus for the school term.
A school based survey designed by nine Year 10′s from the school involved 113 students answering questions about prejudiced based bullying. The results were presented to the whole school through a number of dynamic assemblies.
The follow-up to these activities was a highly productive Information Gathering Event involving over 40 students from Years 9 and 10. In a cafe style setting, the young people who took part explored their experiences of e-safety and the ways to help other young people in the future.
The project culminated in the nine Year 10′s, who coordinated the survey and assemblies, taking part in a film-making exercise with the media company Suited and Booted to demonstrate the effects of ‘labelling’.
Two sessions of filmed interviews with Bath University students have taken place and produced useful results. One student commented: “I’ve found today a really positive experience. It’s easy to see cyberspace being somewhere negative but social networking has allowed me to connect with others in the same situation as me – a young, gay person.” There was recognition of the vastly increased numbers of positive role models for young LGB&T people today and how, if it was possible to return to school to ask teachers to do one thing differently to stop homophobic bullying it would be “To ask them to stop kids getting away with calling everything gay”.
Elle from media company Suited and Booted said, “It was really productive to hear the views from the first year University of Bath students. It was great to hear more positive outlooks on growing up and how the internet and social media can also be supportive and very much an affirmative thing for young people who are working out their sexuality.”
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