Last week PVM took part in a two day training workshop in Vilnius, Lithuania as part of the CONTINUE E+ Project.

Young mentors from across Europe came together – including Georgia, a Project Worker with PVM – to learn about mentoring and social actions. The training was facilitated by Active Youth and Artemisszio and included a range of interactive activities that helped broaden the mentor’s understanding of how to develop social actions with young people. The workshop consisted of step by step activities which helped them explore social issues, identify what impact these issues have, then produce their own social actions to combat the negative effects.

Hate speech, inequality in the workplace and discrimination towards refugees were all topics that the mentor’s explored. They even got the chance to put their ideas into practice, demonstrating their social actions in Vilnius town centre! The social actions ranged from street theatre, flyer campaigns and public discussions and helped the mentors to gain valuable experience, which they can now pass on to the young people they are working with in their communities.

The next stage of the CONTINUE Project will put the learnings of the Lithuania training into practice. In the case of PVM, Georgia will be working with young people from Gorse Hill Studios in Trafford. They will work with Georgia to develop their own social action project, based on the findings of the Community Reporting sessions and Conversation of Change event that they have been involved with earlier in the project.

We’re really looking forward to seeing what emerges from the next stage of the project, remember to stay tuned for updates!

Since September People’s Voice Media have been working on a project with volunteers and community members from across Manchester. In February an online evaluation session took place in which people fed back their experiences working on the project.

The project has been delivered in collaboration with Manchester Local Care Organisation and a variety of VCSE organisations from across the city. Local health development coordinators from MLCO have helped support representatives from the VCSE organisations both in and out of the training sessions. Last week HDCs and team members from MLCO came together to provide feedback on their experiences of the project, reflecting on the aims of the project. Below are the key themes and questions that emerged in the evaluation session:

To utilise the knowledge & expertise of VCSE organisations working in Manchester neighborhoods

• The people involved in the project reflected the communities that need more representation
• The range of VCSE orgs involved in the project meant a diverse range of stories emerged
• The trainings provided opportunities to build connections between Manchester VCSE’s

To train staff & volunteers as Community Reporters

• Trust & confidence levels were impacted by the amount of organisations and representatives in the training sessions
• The practical aspects of the training helped to solidify people’s learning
• People would benefit from learning how Community Reporting could be used in different contexts outside of the project

To build relationships & develop trust between communities & healthcare professionals

• The trainings offered a chance to build relationships between VCSE organisations
• The payment offered for taking part in the project strengthened links between MLCO and community organisations as people feel their contributions are valued
• Difficult to measure cause and effect in terms of developing relationships and building trust in this context

To gather, curate & share stories of people’s experiences during the pandemic to bring about positive change in local communities

• A series of films have been produced as a result of the project including voices from various communities within Manchester reflecting on their experiences of the pandemic
• Confidence levels increased in some of the people who took part in the Community Reporter training sessions
• Future potential for discussions around the content that has been created

Develop trust in public health messaging (Questions raised by MLCO)

• How could we use lived experience stories in health messaging?
• How can we adjust health messaging to reflect the complexities of people’s lives?
• How do we understand from a community perspective what matters?

The evaluation session marked the end of the project and was a great opportunity to regroup and reflect on people’s experiences. We hope the people involved in the project continue to use Community Reporting in their work in the future, and look forward to seeing how the stories gathered continue to generate conversation around the impact of the pandemic on Manchester’s communities.

Over the last few months, PVM has been working with a consortium of European partners on the CONTINUE Project. Co-funded by the Erasmus+ Programme of the European Union, the project has set out to gather the stories of young people across Europe, specifically relating to their experiences of the COVID-19 pandemic.

PVM trained the project partners in Community Reporter methodologies so that they (along with PVM) could host story gathering workshops followed by story curation sessions with marginalised young people in order to garner insights from their lived experience stories. These insights have now been collated and put together in a series of reports, one for each partner.

The findings of these reports are currently being discussed in a series of Conversation of Change events in each of the partner countries, and the findings from these will be taken forward into the next stages of the project, as well as an online pan-European Conversation of Change event, which you can register for here.

In the meantime, you can download each of the English language reports as a PDF using the following links:

• UK insight report by PVM
• German insight report by CRN
• Lithuanian insight report by Active Youth
• Hungarian insight report by Artemisszió
• Italian insight report by Per Esempio
• Danish insight report by Crossing Borders
• Portuguese insight report by FAJDP

About the CONTINUE Project

Connecting European Youth through Storytelling

CONTINUE will support young people suffering from social exclusion to tackle the specific challenges of post-COVID times in terms of staying connected and integrated into European communities. 

CONTINUE will directly involve young people with migrant and other marginal backgrounds in the project activities in order to enhance the interaction between individuals, their communities and the pan-European levels. .

CONTINUE will be realised by a Consortium of 8 NGOs working with marginal youth groups, experienced in youth education, community-based activities, policy recommendations, working with an extended network of organisations from different sectors.

The Wigan Deal is an informal agreement between the council and everyone who lives or works here to work together to create a better borough. You can find out more about it here: https://www.wigan.gov.uk/Council/The-Deal/The-Deal.aspx

To better understand residents’ experiences of The Deal, People’s Voice Media and the Community Reporter network are hosting a series of storytelling sessions. In these storytelling sessions you will:

• Have the opportunity to share your experiences of The Deal
• Record your experience as a video or audio story
• Listen to other people’s experiences of The Deal 
• Determine what we have learned from the stories we’ve shared and heard 

We will share the results of these sessions with you later in the year.

How do I get involved?

You can choose to attend one of the following workshops:

• Workshop 1: 2pm – 4pm, Monday 21^st February 2022, Wigan Library, Wigan Life Centre, The Wiend, Wigan, WN1 1NH. REGISTER HERE.
• Workshop 2: 4:00pm – 5:30pm, Tuesday 22^nd February 2022, Online via Zoom. REGISTER HERE.
• Workshop 3: 2pm – 4pm, Friday 25^th February, Education Room at Leigh Town Hall, Market Street, Leigh, WN7 1DY. REGISTER HERE.

You can sign-up for the workshops on the links above, or get in touch with Hayley (who’ll be facilitating the sessions) on hayley@peoplesvoicemedia.co.uk Registration will stay open until 2:30pm on 17^th February. 

Refreshments and travel expenses up to £10.00 will be provided for the in-person workshops, and 3 financially supported places are available across the three workshops (see below). 

Why are you running them and why should I take part?

These sessions are part of the EUARENAS project that is looking at how democracy works in different towns and cities across Europe. You can find out more about the project here: https://www.euarenas.eu

By taking part in the storytelling sessions, you will be contributing to the research activities of this project. The learning from the project will be shared in a range of ways including blog posts, research publications, policy briefings and practical toolkits to support communities and institutions to work together to create better futures. 

Financially Support Places

We have 1 financially supported place available per workshop that will be allocated on a first-come, first-allocated basis. The financial support is up to a maximum of £60.00 per person. This can be used to cover:

• Other expenses than travel such as childcare costs, internet costs etc. that you incur through attending the workshops. To claim this, you’ll need to send us an expenses form and receipts. 
• Other support costs such as a PA to support you to attend. To claim this, you’ll need to send us an expenses form and receipt OR ask your support to invoice us directly. 
• Contribution fee. To claim this, you’ll need to send us an invoice and be responsible for your own tax and insurance as a self-employed person. 

About People’s Voice Media 

People’s Voice Media is a social charity who have been working with people since 1995 to create bottom-up social change rooted in people’s lived experiences of the world. Our approach – Community Reporting – uses digital storytelling to help people to share their experiences, connect them with others and create new ways of thinking and doing. You can find out more about us here: https://peoplesvoicemedia.co.uk  

The first newsletter for the Continue E + project is available to read now!

The newsletter includes an introduction to the project, as well as an overview of the partner organisations and their experiences with delivering community reporting training workshops with young people in Europe and the UK. If you would like to find out more about the Continue project, why not take a look through the newsletter. You can also visit the project website here.

Follow the link below to download a copy of the newsletter: