Opportunities in Sports & Arts

June 30, 2010

CDC are delighted to support the ‘Once in a lifetime’ Project. It is a Cambridgeshire wide initiative that uses sports and arts to engage people in volunteering and leads to skills for employment, through providing first step taster courses followed by longer accredited programmes. The training is FREE of charge to those that meet the eligibiity criteria.

Please visit www.onceproject.org.uk for fulldetails of project including FREE training that you can access if you meet the eligibility criteria (Unemployed, or with less than 5 GCSE’s at A-C level)

12th November 2009

PROJECT PROGRESS REPORT (1st July 2009- 12th November 2009)

Since starting the project in July we have concentrated on developing the programme awareness, courses, participants and partnerships.

A project identity has been designed along with a website (www.onceproject.org.uk) to raise awareness of the project. The website has links to partner’s websites and these links are reciprocated in our partners sites.

To date, we have delivered three consultation events (involving 70 people), a visit to Peterborough United by a group of 16 to 18 year-old disadvantaged youths to see “behind the scenes” at a Championship football club followed by watching the game between Peterborough and West Bromwich Albion. We followed this with a coach trip to see the Olympic Village construction site, on which we had a mixture of partners, participants and even a press presence to advertise the scheme. The latest was a Circus Skills event whereby we engaged with a group of homeless people, many with either drink or drugs problems, to increase their confidence levels and also introduce them to volunteering opportunities in Wisbech.

We have developed a programme of “Taster” courses of which we have delivered seven, (some more than once) lasting between 2 hours and two days. The most popular of these courses has proved to be the two day Event Stewarding which has given a qualification to most of the thirty seven participants. The number of qualifications would be even higher but for the fact that the minimum age for the qualification is eighteen and we had a number of seventeen year olds on one of the sessions, however, they can take the qualifying examination on reaching eighteen without having to re-sit the course. There have also been a number who have continued to complete the full SIA examination (see “Full Courses” below).

Other “Tasters” we have delivered are Pool Refereeing (this also gave a qualification to three of the participants), Film Making (giving a group some knowledge to film their locally produced pantomime and a promotional film detailing the activities that the Community Centre can offer the local residents), Confidence Building, Music Production and Introduction to Photography. We have also developed a Multi Skills course incorporating Film Making, T Shirt Design, Introduction to Photography and Music Production to enable a group of young people with learning difficulties promote and deliver a Christmas Event at Huntingdon College.

We have also facilitated Full Courses in Football Association Level 1 Coaching where three participants based in the rural village of Sutton gained their Coaching award and the Security Industry Authority (S I A) qualification which will enable the participants that gain the qualification to work within the security sector in such diverse roles such as shops, retail parks, nightclubs and night watchmen. The first of these courses was attended by sixteen participants and finished on the 12thNovember.

Currently our next courses will be a Community Sports Leaders Full course starting on the 16th November and “Tasters” in Confidence Building starting on 19thNovember and another on the 30th November along with Pool Refereeing on the 22nd November.

To summarise we have run fourteen events (twelve tasters and two full courses) to date and have had eighty-four individuals attending (sixty eight people attending tasters and sixteen attending full courses), with a few individuals attending more than one. We have also forged partnerships with organisations such as Connexions, Huntingdon College, Ormiston Trust, Nacro, Young Lives, Huntingdon F. A. Living Sport, ADEC and Team East for Skills, to name a few. We have endeavoured to reach as many participants from as many different backgrounds as possible and we have achieved this objective through relationships with projects like the Ferry Project for homeless people in Wisbech and Pathway into Employment in Huntingdon, again amongst others.

** This project was completed on 31/3/2011.

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