Back in October, PVM delivered a 2 day Community Reporter training workshop in Chester as part of the CONTINUE Erasmus+ Project.

Over the two days, project partners from across Europe and the UK learnt about story curation, how to facilitate sense making workshops with young people, the steps behind creating an insight report and the process of producing a Conversation of Change Event.

In the coming weeks partners will deliver a series of curation workshops with young people in their local communities. The aim of the workshops is to make sense of the stories that have been gathered earlier on in the project. Groups will work collectively to review stories exploring young people’s experiences of the pandemic, identifying the key themes, common experiences and anomalies.

After these curation workshops, an insight report will be written by each of the partners, highlighting the findings from the stories, helping to build a pan-European picture of young people’s experiences of the pandemic. The reports will then help to set the agenda for a a series of Conversation of Change Events in March 2022.

Stay tuned for updates on the CONTINUE project.

Since September PVM have been working with Gorse Hill Studios – A Youth Arts Charity based in Stretford, Greater Manchester – on a new project focused on gathering young people’s experiences of the COVID-19 pandemic.

COVID-19 was a challenging time for many young people, leading to an increase in financial, material and health related vulnerabilities. Existing connections to the social care system, institutions, job opportunities and vital support networks were strained, contributing to a decrease in social integration. This decline in connectivity was particularly difficult for communities who need support with developing digital communication skills. The CONTINUE project aims to support young people who may be experiencing social exclusion, through helping them to tackle the challenges of living in a world impacted by COVID-19. Activities are centered around keeping people connected and integrated into European communities. There are a total of 8 NGOs involved in the project, with expertise in sectors ranging from youth work, education, community-work and policy recommendation as well as an extended network of organisations from across Europe.

The initial stage of the project involved delivering a series of community reporter training session with young people. For PVM in the UK this happened at Gorse Hill Studios in Stretford, Greater Manchester. Young people learnt storytelling techniques and developed digital skills before recording their own lived experience stories reflecting on their experiences of the pandemic. Each young person’s story varied with some exploring the negative impacts such as feelings of isolation and loneliness and others highlighting the opportunity it provided them to focus on developing hobbies and interests. You can listen to the stories recorded by the young people in the UK and across Europe on the Institute of Community Reporters website.

In November, when the story gathering process is complete, partners will carry out a series on knowledge curation and mobilisation sessions. Young people will analyse the contents of the stories, picking out key themes and learnings which will then feed into a series of Conversation of Change events. These will take place in the localities where story gathering has taken place and invite the young people, local leaders and members of the wider community to collaborate and discuss what findings have emerged from the stories.

Stay tuned for project updates and to find out more about future activities!