Transition Town Tooting

Tag: Young People

  • Eco-checking, a memorial bench, school planters, knitted bees and Jellybrella – 2019 Update #1 on our partnership project with CARAS

    We’ve enjoyed and learned so much from our partnership project with CARAS which has been running since spring 2015.
    Here’s a short update on several of the strands – taking the first three in the list above, each of which has involved the Youth Club for asylum-seekers and refugees. We’ll share Update #2 soon.

    As ever, if you are inspired to contribute to the projects – offering good ideas or simply your time, sharing specialist skills, as a donor in kind, as a partner group – you are very welcome to contact Chuck at TTT by email here.
    Over 40 individuals and a dozen local organisations locally have been involved with the TTT + CARAS partnership in many ways over the past 4 years.

    Eco-Checking the CARAS offices
    CARAS has achieved a gold standard London Youth Quality Mark for carrying out participatory and youth-led eco-check of activities across 3 sets of sustainability criteria: Energy & Water; Healthy Living and Litter & Waste. Helped by Egle from CARAS and Sara from TTT, a team of young people identified relevant issues and then analysed how well the organisation as a whole deals with the challenges.

    The intention was not to blame, but to make an action plan for ‘things to change and put right’ as well as ‘things we do well already…and so we should keep doing them!’

    Examples from the action plan:

    • stop purchasing single use plastics for the many meals that are prepared as part of the CARAS programmes
    • renew the planting boxes outside the offices for 2019 so that we’re growing what we might like to eat, and so that there are beautiful plants that are welcoming, that we like and that are good for pollinating insects

    Here are the brand new colourful plates, bowls and cutlery which will be used again and again at CARAS and on Family Days at other local venues.
    You’re welcome to read the eco-check detail – click here.
    It’s admirable because it is short, practical and understandable, and transferable to many other community voluntary settings.

    Congratulations to the multi-language group who came together in Tooting to put the eco-check together!


    Benches and Planters
    Since last summer we’ve been designing and making a bench for The Spires, a local charity working with homeless people. The bench is a memorial to past users of The Spires who have died.

    That’s an example of this whole past year’s priority with CARAS young people: to engage them directly with community groups with needs that the youth club can respond to with energy, skills and creativity.
    It’s been a fascinating design and build experience. Later we’ll share a summary of the project from model making onwards, showing how many hands have been able to contribute.

    The final stage is to add the names of the people for whom the bench is a memorial, and this is being done using laser-cut adhesive copper tape.
    TTT’s bench project co-ordinator Dermot says:
    “It’s moving and humbling to see the young people taking such care with typefaces and the fiddly details necessary in order to a high-impact bench which celebrates people they have never met. Seeing the bench all the way through to completion over months of work is a big achievement”.

    The next project that we’ll do with the Youth Club is another example of a local group ‘reaching in’ to engage with CARAS young people alongside their own team. Chestnut Grove Academy want to create set of planters located right at their newly-created entrance – perhaps to grow ingredients for Food Tech, perhaps to make a quiet space for the Library which looks out on the site, certainly to create a beautiful space. The school wants to commission these planters in an original and creative way.

    The entrance to Chestnut Grove, with the site on the left.

    We’ll be facilitating CARAS young people to work on site with the school community including parents and students. This is a new challenge – for for the first time in 4 years of our build projects we won’t be doing mobile carpentry on the steps of the Hall at Derinton Road!

    In our next update we’ll share news on knitted bees and Jellybrella. We look forward to teasing your interest and sharing details. – Chuck

  • ‘Even When I Fall’ film showing to celebrate Refugee Week 2018 in Tooting

    Join us to celebrate Refugee Week 2018 in Tooting!
    It’s the 20th annual Refugee Week, and in TTT’s 10th anniversary year we’re proud to be showing ‘Even When I Fall’ in partnership with CARAS and St. Mary Magdalene Church, Wandsworth Common.
     
     
    When: Sunday 17th June. Doors open 7:00 for tea and a samosa and the film starts at 7:30
    Where: St Mary Magdalene Church, in the Main Hall. 202 Trinity Road SW17 7HP – near Wandsworth Common
    Free showing: we’ll ask for voluntary donations to cover costs
    Queries: please contact us by email
    ‘Even When I Fall’ is an intimate, beautiful film that harnesses the visual power of circus to give a unique perspective into the complex world of human trafficking.
    ‘Even When I Fall’ traces the journey of Sheetal and Saraswoti, two girls from Nepal. 
     
    They met as teenagers in a Kathmandu refuge, survivors of child trafficking to corrupt Indian circuses and brought back to a country they could barely remember.
     
    Inadvertently these girls were left with a secret weapon by their captors – their breath-taking skills as circus artists. 
    With 11 other young trafficking survivors, the girls form Circus Kathmandu – Nepal’s first and only circus.
    The group continues to take circus skills and trafficking awareness workshops all over Nepal.

  • ‘Signs of Welcome’ free, creative, hands-on & local workshops from March to June 2018

    In March we started our run of ‘Signs of Welcome’ creative workshops, and between now and June we’re offering more public hands-on events with local project partners. 

    In the workshops you’ll explore your responses 
    to this open question: 
    “What would you like to say to welcome people who are new to the community?”
    You’ll imagine what message you would like to say to refugees, asylum-seekers or others new to the community.
    You’ll design and create signs to express your message.
    You can take them home or loan them to us for exhibition during Refugee Week in June.

    The next two events are in the Easter holidays:

    Date:  Wednesday 11th April  
    Venue: Tartine Artinasal
    9 Upper Tooting Road, Tooting Bec, SW17 7TS 
    Timings: 4:00 pm to 5:30 pm

    Date:  Friday 13th April 
    Venue: Home Community Cafe
    St Andrew’s Earlsfield, Garratt Lane SW18 4SR
    Timings: 1:00 pm to 2:30 pm
    What to expect: 
    • All welcome to join us for a free, facilitated and fun crafts workshop using re-purposed materials – we’ll provide everything you need 
    • Design and create your own messages of welcome to people new to the community
    • Adults and children will all enjoy the workshop 
    • No need to book
    • We’ve included weekends and afternoons after school to allow children and families to take part together 
    • Take the signs home, or leave them with us for exhibition during Refugee Week in June 2018
    • Workshop run by Transition Town Tooting and CARAS (the Tooting charity serving refugees and asylum-seekers)

      Thanks to our local partner the Work and Play Scrapstore in Tooting, the signs will always be made using materials saved from going to waste. 

      Write your signs in any language!
      Design a message using both sides of your sign!

      Many thanks to all the local partners hosting free Signs of Welcome workshops, including:

      • Fridays March 10th & 23rd. The Sound Lounge, Wimbledon

      • Wednesday April 11th. Tartine Artinasal, Tooting Bec

      • Friday April 13th. Home Community Cafe, Earlsfield

      • Friday June 1st. Wandsworth Oasis shop, Amen Corner

      • Saturday June 9th. Paradise Co-operative, Earlsfield

      • Friday June 15th. Sprout Community Arts, Furzedown
      We’ll share the details of each workshop closer to the time. 

      This project is a strand of the 2018 Welcoming Signs partnership between TTT and CARAS and local venues and other supporters. The purpose throughout the year will be to facilitate events which draw refugees & asylum-seekers closer together with the local community.

    • Funding awarded for 2018 ‘Welcoming Signs’ partnership with CARAS. Plus: new creative community workshops running March-May.

      We’re planning the fourth year of TTT’s partnership with CARAS the Tooting charity working with refugee and asylum-seekers. 
       
      We’re thrilled that the partnership has been awarded funding for 2018 from Team London and Thrive LDN’s ‘Young London Inspired’ fund: “improving the lives and mental health of young Londoners by helping them to volunteer”.

      So, in 2018 one of our main focus areas will be enabling young people from CARAS to volunteer in the community. That means working with young people to imagine and design what they could contribute locally and what benefit that would have, as well as carrying out the voluntary time.

      The whole 2018 young people’s partnership is called ‘Welcoming Signs’. Many elements of our CARAS project involved community benefit and relationships in the past: for example these pallet-benches made with the CARAS Youth Club with welcoming invitations written in many languages had starring roles at TTT’s Tooting Twirl in July 2017:

       

      We’re fortunate and grateful that several local partner organisations in Tootings have been ‘reaching in’ to CARAS, seeking and offering voluntary projects. 
      We’ll share more very soon on the range of activities we’re exploring. 

      Plus we’ll continue to work through 2018 with other age groups served by CARAS: families, the women’s group, adults.

      The first community events with young people from CARAS included as contributors are starting in the next few weeks: on March 16th and 23rd we’re facilitating Signs of Welcome workshops across the border in Wimbledon, at The Sound Lounge pop-up venue. 
      It’s the same event run two times. 
      Six other local venues have agreed to offer more Signs of Welcome sessions between March and May as project partners. 
      The materials from the ‘Signs’ will always be re-purposed, saved from going to waste. Thanks to another partner, the Work and Play Scrapstore in Tooting for your support!

       

      The details: Signs of Welcome creative workshops this March

      “What would you like to say to welcome people who are new to the community?”

      Dates: Friday 16th March & Friday 23rd March
      Venue: The Sound Lounge, 8 The Broadway, Wimbledon SW19 1RE
      Timings: 4:00 pm to 5:30 pm
      What to expect: (download the flier here)

      o   All welcome to join us for a free, facilitated and fun crafts workshop using re-purposed materials – we’ll provide everything you need

      o   Create your own messages of welcome to people new to the community. You can write in any language!

      o   Take the signs home, or leave them with us for exhibition during Refugee Week in June 2018

      o   Adults and children will all enjoy the workshop

      o   We’ve chosen afternoons after school to allow children and families to take part together

      Tooting friends are welcome to come over to Wimbledon to enjoy the first workshops and the familiar faces at The Sound Lounge.

      Please contact Charles by email here if you have any queries. Up-to-date news on the workshops will be on TTT’s facebook page & shared by twitter.



    • ‘Stay With Love’: Gardens of Refuge Project update

      We’re reporting back every six weeks on the Gardens of Refuge Project. That’s our local project running throughout 2017 with refugees and asylum-seekers living in and nearby Tooting, alongside our project partners CARAS and The Grange.

      Our previous summary at the end of May can be read here.
      In June and July we’ve worked with the CARAS Saturday Youth Club. 

      Elly Brown, MD at CARAS says:

      “We’ve already witnessed the
      transformations that take place
      when people from far and wide
      can use their skills and knowledge
      to create something shared.”
      What have we been doing together?
      ‘Stay with Love’ Making instant pallet benches:

      In one mighty 4-hour session, a loose and changing group from the CARAS Youth Club co-designed, shared ideas, problem solved and brought in new team members to make four of these pallet benches.
      Hats off to that dedicated group whose pride meant they insisted on eating their communal lunch sitting on the new benches.
      Part of the production line was to write messages of welcome and invitation on the seat backs. 
      These are in many languages.
      These young people have come to the UK in search of a welcome, safety and to put down new roots. It’s poignant that they felt comfortable to contribute their own personal invitations so directly to all-comers.

      These benches went on to the pop-up village green of the Tooting Twirl and now they’re in the Community Garden. Come and have a seat!
      ‘Stay with love’ as one young man wrote
      on a bench.

       

      Beetles and Bees 
      Making planters for Hillbrook School:

      Construction was more straightforward than the benches. With carpentry finished quickly, in June we painted the new planters cream.

      In parallel we spent time drawing insects (real and imagined) – offering this in the crowded hall alongside ping pong, pool and games. It was a fun experiment to have youth clubbers drop by the ‘insect table’ to sketch….a new experience for everyone.

      Our plan was to scan these drawings to make laser-cut plaques and cut-out insects to fix  onto the planters as fascinating decoration.
      It worked! Many thanks for patience & persistence to Dermot, the South London Makerspace and Nicola.

      Passing around these 3-D cutouts at the start of the following sessions, everyone could see the young people’s feelings of ownership and achievement.

      The planters were delivered to Hillbrook School this week. In September we’ll have a celebration there with youth club members to ‘cut the ribbon’ to launch children’s growing in the beautiful planters.

      PLUS: We’ve continued to work alongside young people looking after the planting done over 3 years at the CARAS office and the Hall around the corner. Thanks Rose, it’s looking very good!

      Now we’re planning the next steps for the Family Days we’re facilitating in August in the Community Garden.

      We’ve also begun to explore what we can do together with a new CARAS beneficiary group – single adults who don’t join the family days or the youth club.

      If you would like to co-facilitate or contribute your time or materials to the Gardens of Refuge project – please email us, we’d love to discuss it.
      – Charles

    • Gardens of Refuge project: updating you on 4 fascinating strands at the end of May

      We’re sharing our monthly update about Gardens of Refuge.
      Gardens of Refuge is our 2017 partnership project with CARAS and The Grange to provide therapeutic and positive experiences for people of refugee and asylum-seeking backgrounds who live in South-West London.
      There are four interrelated project strands to share:
      > Carpentry project with the Youth Club  
      > Family Activity Days
      > Vertical gardening with the Youth Club  
      > A 4-day trip to The Grange in Norfolk 

      1. Carpentry project with the Youth Club 
      We’ve developed a relationship with a nearby primary school who need planters for their own outdoor space.

      Led by Dermot, last weekend we began a series of 3 sessions to build and decorate these planters. The young people took on the design brief and modified the build based on other planters we have made together. In this case we’re making beds that are low enough for young children to use, and also tough enough to stand up to inevitable playground clambering.

      The session ran to twice its expected length because there was so much energy!
      Later on we have access to laser-cutting equipment or 3D printing to make plaques to fix to the beds.

      2. Family Activity Days
      This half term we have helped facilitate the fourth Family Day of 2017 – partly social, partly to do an interesting activity, partly to join together for a meal (allowing for Ramadan).


      Led by Jeni, we continued our mural project – the delightful idea of a ceiling decoration, based in images of water, for the underneath of the 4.5 metre-long rainwater catchment roof at the Tooting Community Garden.
      We started with impromptu storytelling in groups of 3 people of all ages, based on graphics done in April’s session.

      Stories have a beginning, a middle and an end, and each person supplied one of those – whatever their age.
      For example, using a painting of a snowflake, one story ran: ‘Once upon a time a beautiful snowflake was gently falling…..then the sun came out….and the snowflake turned to water and went plop on my head’. Hearing 9 or 10 of these imaginative stories was fantastic!

      Tuned up to be creative, we turned to painting details of our water images – either swirls and waves or drops (or petals…) – on the fascinating range of recycled scrap materials – metal, plastic, wood, CDs, buttons. (All from our friends at the Work and Play Scrapstore). Later we’ll arrange all these on the rainwater collector ceiling when we offer two Family sessions at the garden itself.

      3. Vertical gardening with the Youth Club
      In March and April Youth Club members made a pair of planters out of scrap pallets.  Since then we’ve been involving young people who want to work in depth with plants and keep all the planting looking good – all led by Rose, our team gardener.

      Each pallet has 3 very narrow beds, and we fixed them to the outside of the railings at the CARAS office at Blakenham Road. Both pallet-beds are planted with young plants grown in Tooting at Share Garden.
      Go and have a look – the beds symbolise the young people’s wish to look outwards, to interact with the wider community, to make something attractive for all to appreciate – and to enjoy the process.

      4. A 4-day trip to The Grange in Norfolk
      Earlier in May a group of 8 of us went to The Grange near Norwich – a respite centre combined with gardening and much more that CARAS has been to several times over the past 2 years. We were 4 young people from 3 countries, plus 4 adults from 3 countries, all helped by the two Grange hosts.

      We lived in the comfortable old house within ten acres of farmland, walked in the woods, looked at moths and grass snakes, cooked our meals, made bread and pots, made plant prints, played a lot of instruments and games, played with our mobiles.  On the middle day a larger group of 15 local people, including other refugees, joined for the weekly work day when a big list of jobs was tackled.

      The purpose is to have a positive, enjoyable, safe time together in a setting that is totally different from Tooting.
      It was a big privilege to join and help facilitate!

      Remember our Gardens of Refuge funding campaign and success?
      A proportion of the funds helps CARAS attend The Grange.
      More trips are planned for 2017.

      Thank you for reading about these diverse activities. We believe they add up to experiences which are valuable for all of us involved: we’re all beneficiaries.

      If you are interested to contribute either your time or other resources to help these projects – at a distance or hands-on – we’d love to talk about that. Please contact Charles by email.

    • Outdoor Learning and doing with NCS Challenge

      On Sunday 17th July, Jeni Walker and Richard Couldrey continued with the 4th year of our annual pattern of work with the National Citizen Service through “The Challenge” – a personal development and social integration programme offered to 15 – 17 year olds which includes a project focused day with a Charity or Community Group.

      Emer Clark, our principle contact and Challenge Mentor, reflected that interaction with Transition Town Tooting challenges the participants to step out their comfort zones and enables them to make a contribution to a local community, which is a huge part of the overall aims of NCS Challenge.

      For us, this project chimes loudly with our aim to work with Young People of all ages – from the Reception Class of Gatton Primary to a poster competition with Graveney Secondary School for Foodival last year, to name but 2.

      The 11 participants of this years NCS Challenge with the results of their labours!

      Read on to find out what happened on the day…
      After an introductory session on Saturday 9th July, the 11 participants spent the week doing 2 tasks for Transition Town Tooting to bring back to the Project Day:

      • fundraising for the project day together – understanding the value of the work we do and championing that to raise money for materials and tools needed.
      • pitching for £50 to a Dragon’s Den of experts, again for the project day.
      Both activities are focused on the ideas and application of the Young People involved – if they don’t creatively engage and bring ideas, the project wouldn’t work. Jeni and I continued this theme, giving a palette of options for the project day and asking the participants to “vote” on the preferred options.

      Rubbing down for painting
      Noticeboard decoration!
      Signs from re-use bed slats

      During the project day, we completed…

      • Re-covering the Rainwater Catchment – a necessary bit of maintenance for this Gatton Primary Project of 2013.
      • Sign making and information board design and making – a wonderful addition to the garden for us to better communicate what is growing and the range of projects to visitors new and old.
      • Bottle Greenhouse repairs – another Gatton Primary School project, this time from 2015, that needed a dose of TLC.
      Back to Emer for closing remarks, “The feedback was very positive. On the whole these teams had never been involved in this kind of community project before, but they got involved and by the end they certainly all learnt something new and had a really enjoyable day! It was great to hear the stories about the day-all of them revealing just how stuck in and creative this project allowed the young people to be.”

      Thank you Challengers for your work in all aspects of this part of your programme! Richard and Jeni

    • Growing together, Learning together, Working together: three years of Outdoor Learning in Gatton Primary School’s own words

      Early in May we held a delightful celebration of three years’ shared experience of the outdoor learning project between Gatton Primary School and Tooting Community Garden. 
      You can look at that blog report by clicking here. 

      The sun shone on us all and lit the mosaic made at the school with every pupil involved. 
      Among the natural images the tiles spell out the three phrases that are the title of this post.

      What is outdoor learning? ‘OL’ covers many activities (not only gardening) and settings. OL offers opportunities for surprising and diverse impact on participants –not fixed or one-size–fits–all.

      Have a look at this earlier TTT post on outdoor learning with younger children from Gatton School.
      Also, click on OUTDOOR LEARNING in the Quick LInks at the top of this web page for stories from 3 years of the project.

      We want to share Gatton School pupils’ own words about their experience of the project. Young people from Year Six (10 & 11 years old) made confident and touching short speeches at the celebration, and you can read the texts here. 


       All the statements are fascinating, and I’ll quote just parts of what 4 different pupils said:

      • “For over three years now our school has worked as a team to create these projects which you see before you. Team work is necessary in our lives and Gatton School has used this advantage to work as a team and benefit the environment”
      • “We can cultivate land together and learn more social skills when we are engrossed in doing gardening together as either a family or as a community”
      • “Taking part in such activities even improves our Design & Technology skills and encourages children to do something that benefits them as well as having fun doing so. D&T inspires children’s creativity and pushes them to think about important ways to support Mother Nature” 
      •  “Nature plays an important part in every religion and it is everyone’s responsibility to take care of it. We strongly believe that this community garden has brought us together and closer than ever before”


      I asked Rifat Batool, Head of Gatton School, to share some of her vision for establishing and continuing the project. She said:

      “Outdoor and engaging learning is a strong aspect of our work at Gatton School. The various projects carried out in the community garden over the past 3 years have allowed pupils to see first-hand how much we can do together as part of a strong partnership committed to learning. 

      We continually challenge our thinking and way of learning to drive for more innovative ideas to enhance learning even further. This allows pupils to see that so much is possible when using creativity, imagination and sense of purpose. 

      This partnership and celebration represents the coming together of people from different backgrounds and interests  and is an amazing representation of teamwork, collaboration and mutual respect”.

      TTT feels honoured to be part of three years of positive experiment, and grateful for the commitment shown by the children, Gatton School staff, Mushkil Aasaan the owners of the garden site and our own team, rain or shine.

       
      Thank you all, and we’re looking forward to the next three years!
      – Charles

    • Bringing local cultures and faiths together with outdoor learning in Tooting Community Garden

      We’re proud to be helping with a new outdoor learning project in the Community Garden with Gatton Primary School and the Mosaic Jewish Primary School

      Our Community Garden-based project with Gatton School has run for nearly three years. Gatton is a Muslim primary near Tooting Broadway – click here for lots of our earlier reports.
       
      The Head at Gatton Scool, Rifat Batool, has always been keen to extend the project to capitalise on ‘Garden’ learning opportunities for building community links plus vivid SMSC education. 
       
      SMSC is Social, Moral, Spiritual and Cultural development, which is linked strongly to schools’ citizenship curriculum content.
       
       
       
       
       
       
       

      Rifat Batool has met an enthusiastic ally in Kate Baum, Head of the Mosaic Jewish Primary School. 
       
       
       
       
      This is a first exciting step in bringing together two Wandsworth borough faith communities in a new way, and facilitating a new chapter of shared outdoor learning. Both schools are Ofsted ‘Outstanding’, and this creative experiment is an example to all.
       
      After planning in the autumn, last week on a sunny day in Tooting a Year 1 group from Gatton were joined by children from the Mosaic Jewish School. The photos tell the story:
       
      Examining pictures of the diverse school activities in the Garden since March 2013.
       
       
       
       
       
       
      Sorting garlic bulbs and separating the individual cloves. 
      Which way up to plant them?


       
       
       

      Measuring the plot and cutting string to mark the row.
       

       
       
       

      Planting the garlic cloves.
      Later in the summer we’ll save some to cook dishes at both schools for the Tooting Foodival in September.
       Close encounters.
       
       
       
       
       
       
       
       
       
       
       
       
      The Mosaic Jewish School is starting a school garden at their new location in Roehampton. TTT and Gatton School’s facilitation experience – including growing and nature, awareness and teamworking games, building the rainwater harvesting classroom, the insect hotel and the bottle greenhouse – gave the visitors energy and plenty of ideas to add to their own garden and learning plans.

      Children from both schools will continue be involved in joint plans. We can’t wait to see what develops, and we’ll share news on this blog.
       
      Please get in touch with us at TTT if you would like to know more, or contribute to this project.
       
       

    • Exploring facilitation choices for our ‘Rooting in Tooting’ project with asylum-seekers and refugees

      Our new ‘Rooting in Tooting’ project has been developed with the Tooting charity CARAS (Community Action for Refugees and Asylum-Seekers). We’ve written two posts so far, please scroll down this blog to read them. You’ll see that our pilot project in May and June was enjoyable and positive. 

      For Those in Peril on the Sea – Hew Locke

      Quiz question A: what percentage of the migrants who have come to Europe so far in 2015 have reached Calais? 1%, 4%, 8%, 15%? Answer is at the end of the post.

      On Sept 1st, 11 of us gathered at CARAS for an orientation hosted by the charity team. 
      Against a background of dramatic media coverage, our intention was to understand just a bit more about the ‘whys, whats and hows’ for refugees and asylum-seekers, and the experiences of the young people and families with whom CARAS works.

      We know a lot about the activities we are going to do offer: growing and gardening and improving biodiversity at the CARAS office, creative projects, telling the Rooting in Tooting story over the next year, and exploring low-carbon living. 
      We’re not familiar with the reality of life for refugees now. 

      • How should we offer activities so that they are meaningful to participants, and so that we share them in an appropriate way? 
      Rug People – Paloma Varga Weisz

      A 2-hour discussion on this topic had to be very selective, and we take our TTT hats off to Eleanor and Molly as guides. 
      Thank you for your preparation and care, and thoughtful, challenging comments.

        Quiz question B: What was the country of origin for the largest number of unaccompanied children entering the UK so far in 2015?  
        Afghanistan; Eritrea; Albania; Syria? Answer is at the end of the post.

        Three of the topics that we discussed:

        1. Refugees and asylum-seekers have been repeatedly processed and questioned…of course those are the steps for coming to an agreement about official leave to stay in the UK. 

        • To balance that experience in our activities: we’ll ask for and trust that individuals have skills and that they can teach each other; we’ll tackle things together rather than directing.We’ll let participants volunteer what they want to tell us.
        The Folkestone Mermaid – Cornelia Parker

        2. Unaccompanied teenagers are resilient and ambitious, not passive. They have crossed many countries (at CARAS 18 home countries are represented), and weathered many setbacks (the ones that make it). Asked in youth club discussions about their ideal futures, they want to give something back – for example become a teacher, or a pharmacist. “In many ways they are the alpha children of the world”, and they deserve respect. 

        • We’re encouraged not to shy away from new vocabulary that can be stretching and thought-provoking. We’ll explain specialist and unfamiliar language.

        3. What is going well in the UK for refugees? The UK system sees teenage unaccompanied asylum seekers as ‘children first’ and provides a range of services to support them, so that as far as possible they can experience life like other teenagers locally – with everyday choices, opportunities, and challenges. 

        Public Works – Folkestonomy

        These approaches are role models for other countries.

        • We’ll try and reflect the atmosphere in the youth club, which “feels like a group of people having a nice time together”.   We’ll encourage putting down roots.

        All the photos are taken at Folkestone Sculpture Triennial shows 2008-2014, which included themes of dislocation and distant travel in the setting of a derelict Channel port railhead. 
        And the two quiz answers? Question A: 1%. Question B: Albania.

        Please contact TTT if you would like to discuss or contribute to this project. – Charles