37 pupils from Davison High School have produced beautiful arts and crafts to sell at the school’s Christmas Fayre next week with proceeds going to St Barnabas Hospice. The pupils joined asphaleia’s ON2UP2 project in a team-building programme aimed at raising participation and confidence amongst a group of girls with a range of personal and social development needs.

The students produced handmade cards, jewellery boxes, A5 paintings and jigsaw puzzles. They also attended Personal & Social Development sessions with asphaleia Tutor Nicola, addressing issues such as anger management, confidence, behaviour and relationships.

Some handmade cards

“The process of the creation of designs involved students drawing from observation of still life objects. They progressed by exploring different materials, and generating final card designs. Most important in this process was for students to realise the possibility of generating income for themselves in the future, particularly in the current economical climate we are in, and developing a sense of pride and can-do spirit. Through the work students produced the source of ideas can be tracked right back to their original observation drawings or print outs. The girls have worked hard and produced some beautiful work… the girls certainly say they feel a lot more confident now and that’s due to all the collaborative work we’ve done.”  Phati, Creative Art Tutor at asphaleia.

The Christmas Fayre takes place at Davison High School Friday 25^th November, 6.30pm - 8.30pm. We hope the girls make lots of money for the St Barnabas Hospice.

Blog written by Amy Pedder, Senior Project Worker.

The European Social Fund (ESF) held the third London ESF Awards at City Hall on the 14^th of November, including the awards for the European Regional Development Fund programme (ERDF) for the first time. Supported by ESF-Works, the Awards showcased the talents, skills and employment related achievements of individuals benefiting from ESF across London.

asphaleia nominated Khalid for the award and to our delight, he made it to the final three and received a certificate! This is his story:

Khalid worked with his Project Worker on the P2P programme delivered by asphaleia. Khalid has always been a very hard worker, extremely motivated to improve and to develop new skills. He has always been polite, respectful and showed good manners to others. Khalid asked for extra work to do at home every day. His desire and attitude towards learning has been an inspiration, not only for other learners, but also for other members of the staff including myself. So Khalid indeed had all the attitudes needed to become a successful young person except one: Khalid lacked self-confidence to socialise and communicate with others and he was very introverted and shy. Improving something that has been deeply rooted in your personality is not easy, and being 16 years old and unaccompanied in another country where everybody speaks weird does not help at all.

Step-by-step and with the support of his Project Worker, we designed a strategy through positive activities and skills development programmes, focusing on improving his self-esteem and confidence to cope with different social and professional situations that he would face in the future. These included: mock interviews, role plays, making requests for information, presentations, asking prepared questions and finally a work placement in McDonalds where he learned a great deal of customer service skills and also how to deal with some challenging customers!

After two months in the project Khalid faced his fears about public speaking and other intimidating situations. On the 21^st of September we invited Khalid to our open day to talk in public about his experience in the project in front of over 30 professional adults!

His speech was the highlight of the day, so inspiring and so powerful that it was mentioned in all the feedback forms of the attendants.

Reflecting on how much Khalid changed after his time in the project make us feel very proud. Khalid has taught all of us that with a little bit of support and tons of determination we all can overcome our fears. Khalid has always said how important his Project Worker was, we always say how important Khalid has been for us all.

Khalid with his certificate

Message from Khalid: “After I joined ESF they made me improve about everything. Within short time I improved my English language, my self-confidence and I got ability to talk to the people. They helped me to do work experience and after that they helped me to find a job where I am still working at that job that they helped me to find. Actually they make me stronger and more confident person. Today I’m doing level 2 science which equals GCSE at city of Westminster college and I work for the McDonald as well. In the future I wish to continuo my education until university and to keep working until I get my target.”

Khalid and Jurgita

Well done Khalid!

Blog written by Jurgita Sereikaite, asphaleia Charity Manager & Assistant training Manager.

asphaleia’s Prince’s Trust Team programme have just finished painting and revamping Community House in Worthing. The Community House provides activities, learning experiences and a social space for young people and adults. Its property on Dominion Road in Worthing was in need of a bit of TLC, which is where 13 young people from the Prince’s Trust Team programme stepped in.

The Prince's Trust Team

The team spent two days in Worthing town centre to raise funds to resource the project - this was generously matched by Southern Water.

Then, the 13 young people set about repainting rooms and communal areas, planting beds in the garden and getting creative in some of the activity spaces. Highlights of the young peoples’ work was an inspirational motif on the stairway, a beautiful mural in the playroom and some colourful raised bedding in the garden.

Candice, Team Leader for the Prince’s Trust Team was really impressed the results. “It was a brilliant week and a chance for the young people to put all of their skills into practice. The young people put in a lot of effort to give the centre a fresh new look with fantastic creative designs on the walls. The work they did really makes a difference and the Team should be really proud of what they achieved together.”

The colourful new beds in the garden

All the young people enjoyed themselves and learnt some DIY skills along the way. Next week they’ll be revisiting the centre for an official opening and celebration of their achievement.

On Monday 7th November 2011, from 2pm - 4pm, our Worthing training centre will be open for young people to pop in, find out about our programmes and sign up.

If you know a young person or are a young person who is interested in finding out about all the benefits of studying with us  then please come along. You will also get the chance to see our centre of town based building and meet our fabulous team.

The centre is located at 22 Liverpool Gardens, BN11 1RY, on the corner of Chapel Road, next to Leaders estate agents.

We are looking forward to seeing you then!

On Saturday 15th October, the asphaleia training team headed down to Worthing Leisure Centre, to run a stand telling local young people and their families about the opportunities available at asphaleia.

The information zone

“The day provided a great opportunity for us to generate more awareness in the local community about what learning is on offer at our training centres. It was the first education fair run by Worthing College and presented all the available provision for young people in the area. Over 700 people walked through the door and we chatted to lots of young people and their parents about the work of asphaleia,” explains marketing and communications manager Hayley.

“It was great to be amongst good company too. Northbrook, Chichester and Worthing Colleges all had lots of information on offer and our team particularly enjoyed the pancakes being made by the catering team from Northbrook!” she adds.

We were very pleased to have two young people from our current programmes in Worthing. Ellie and Lauren were great ambassadors for the organisation for the day, and also enjoyed finding out more about the local colleges and the courses that could be available to them, once they complete their time with us.

Lauren and Elly have fun on the tag wall

The asphaleia stand consisted of an information zone, a games zone, a tag wall (for young people to leave a tag - and win a prize!), maths corner…and much more! Keep an eye out for the team at more events like these in the coming months!

Simon attempts to teach Lauren how to juggle

The Reaching for Gold website has all the info young people need

Reaching for Gold is a competition to encourage innovation and creativity in young people - essential skills for the industries that will lead us out of recession. The competition is looking for ideas from people aged between 14-21 that will benefit people from the South East who are disadvantaged by the area they live in, their circumstances or by their disability.

This competition is seeking out the best ideas for a new product that can be made into a reality.  If the idea is one of the best, they will invite young people to come and pitch their product to a special pannel of judges for the chance to win cash for your cause!  To give each of the shortlisted groups a boost, they will provide a corporate and VCS mentor to help develop the idea. The themes for the competition are Youth, Community and Innovative Access.

The intention with Reaching for Gold is for this to form a natural extension to the work organisations, such as asphaleia, are currently doing.

The competition is now open for applications and will close at 5pm on the 30th November 2011. All the documentation, guidance and resources are available on the website: www.reachingforgold.org.uk

Shortlisting of the applicants will take place in December, to work intensively with both Corporate and Voluntary Sector Partners to develop their ideas and project management skills in a series of structured business development sessions.

The competition will culminate with the young people pitching their projects to a ‘Dragon’s Den’ style panel at Windsor Castle on 15th March 2012, followed by an awards ceremony.

The participants in the top three groups will each receive a Gold, Silver or Bronze medal and the overall winner will take home the Reaching for Gold Trophy (theirs for a year!). In addition to that, the organisation that puts forward their young people and wins first, second or third, will receive a cheque for £3000,£1500 or £750 respectively to help work up the winning idea further.

This is a great opportunity for young people in asphaleia - please communicate to those you are working with.

asphaleia training learners

Come and see the training team, along with young people, this Saturday at the Worthing Education Fair.

The event is running from 10.30am - 3.30pm and will be held at Worthing Leisure Centre in Durrington.

Our team will be showcasing our ICT provision, as well as examples of numeracy classes. We are also very pleased to have two young people joining us for the day who will be able to tell you what it is really like to learn and study at asphaleia.

Find out more information here: http://www.worthing.ac.uk/pages/Thecollege/EducationFair.aspx

We are looking forward to seeing you there!

Last Friday, the asphaleia training team hosted a stand at the World Skills event 2011, showcasing the fantastic programmes and learning opportunities on offer for young people aged 14 - 18.

Our interactive stand (picture below) offered visits to our new website, Wii games and activities and information about current programmes running at asphaleia.

Outreach worker Juan and two young people hosted the stand from Wednesday - Friday, with tutor Simon Burlong running the stand on Saturday. “It was such a fantastic event,” explains Juan. “I was so pleased we invited young people to work alongside staff in promoting the work of asphaleia - we were one of the very few stands that had brought young people with them and they were the perfect ambassadors for asphaleia. The ESF team, who funded our stand, were very impressed with them.”

The World Skills event saw over 150,000 young people walk through the exhibition over the four days, with exhibitors ranging from the BBC, to colleges, to engineering companies and to hotels. It was a really fantastic event and gave young people an opportunity to view all the different options open to them when they leave education.

asphaleia CEO Dave Cottrell also spoke at the event and was thrilled to share asphaleia experiences with other organisations. Thanks to ESF for funding the asphaleia stand.