THE RESIDENT REPRESENTATIVE TEAM
Event Feedback

Big Lunch 2009

The Big Lunch 2009 event was supported by a local business that employ’s young people from the Association to work in their café, waiting on. A full programme of activity was planned including residents and staff performing their musical talents, everyone helping out setting up, friends and  parents were painting kids faces, technicians supporting the music, designing publicity material and distributing leaflets. 

We also had support from Merseyside Fire Service who made an appearance and Wirral TV, a community film organisation who attended to capture the fun and entertainment of the day. An added bonus was that the sun shone all day.

The event was very successful with family, friends, colleagues and professional agencies expressing that the event was uplifting, fun, and imaginative and a great opportunity for bringing the community together. Those that attended from the local area are faced with many challenges with significant deprivation, low life expectancy, severe pockets of poverty and unemployment. Local community events such as this are rare in the area, many who attended left asking, when are we going to be holding the next ‘Big Lunch’?

Our aim for 2010 is to capture that atmosphere again, bringing more in on the preparation and providing similar events at the same time in the other two boroughs we work in. The event will be fully planned and delivered by our residents and the partners we have in those localities. We now believe we have a model that can work anywhere, bringing people together around the BIG LUNCH table.

Area Forum

2 staff and 3 young people attended the Area Forum at Rock Ferry in February. There were some misconceptions shared by the community about Forum and young people. The young people conducted themselves like true passionate adults and shared the following information with the public and panel of professionals

• They wanted to have support to get into employment and education
• Pro-active 'incentive' projects to change young people's perspectives of working and attending college also funding to find their passion for their career.
• Confidence building and learning courses.

The young people also felt this was a safe and privileged arena to tackle prejudice on homelessness and young people and the Resident Rep Team are working towards getting more opportunities to do this.

Area Youth Forum Bid

The Project Reps are democratically voted in by their peers at their Projects through an election process which forms the Residents’ Panel.  They meet once a month to proactively work on bid applications, tackle issues across the Association, undertake consultation internally and externally, but also have the opportunity to be trained up and most importantly have fun!

The Panel’s aim for this project is to reduce drug and alcohol misuse in the youth community and raise awareness about how to prevent petty crime, vandalism and anti social behaviour. We aim to reduce these issues by setting up sport activities and using peer education as a tool.

In addition young people want to produce a short DVD that provokes debate and conversation for future residents.

This is being fully supported by Youth Participation Assistants working with us for 6 months through the Future Jobs Fund and they are thoroughly enjoying working on this with the young people.

Anthony Walker Foundation Consultation

This session was to positively tackle some issues we identified about racism.

We contacted and invited in a representative from the Anthony Walker Foundation to come and deliver a session using the film ‘Colour Blind’ (directed by Lenny Henry) which takes a young and unique look at society and racism.  Colour Blind is fully supported by the Anthony Walker Foundation and was sponsored by Liverpool Football Club.

The session was run by a phenomenal man who worked well with the young people; the young people challenged him and he challenged them. Since running this session we have had no incidents of racism in that Project however we are proactive and aware that we have to continue to do these pieces of educational work.

Homeless Education Workshop

This opportunity was to raise awareness about homelessness and some of the factors affecting young people’s lives today, challenge stereotypical views and perceptions of “homeless” people through interactive sessions and activities giving students a chance to ask the questions!

This also empowered residents of Forum by giving responsibility to attend this event and the opportunity to share true life experiences.