Young people excel in community challenge in Milton Keynes

The eight teenagers from Lord Grey Academy took part in a Crack It! project to be empowered to take responsibility for their local community and their future.

The project supports young people who have become disengaged from school and areas of their lives due to the impact of Covid.

Delivered by Develop and funded through Youth Endowment, Crack It! aims to o re-engage students back into school by helping them develop team working skills, positive communication and understand they have individual strengths and something positive to offer.

Over eight weeks there was a series of team activities that pushed the young people outside their comfort zones and helped them find new confidence.

The team took on the raft challenge, where they made it to the other side of Caldecotte Lake, and then then climbed a 15-metre-high wall to take on the 10-metre-high leap of faith.

They also helped Golden Garden and Builders Limited with a challenge to revamp community gardens, and worked with Zane and Kingsley to put in decking, remove all weeds, paint the garden furniture and produce a mural.

The team revamped the garden to the side of Bletchley Youth Centre, making it an improved space for other users of the centre. They took on a recycling challenge where they collected thousands of empty plastic bottles and used them to create a greenhouse.

Golden Gardens and Building Ltd have been so impressed with how dedicated the team have been and how hard they worked that they have

sponsored two of the young people to take up Extended Work Experience placements with them in 2021 via Develop.

The Crack It! team met the Mayor of Milton Keynes Councillor Andrew Geary and Councillor James Lancaster on their awards day this week, when they were presented with certificates of achievement.

Both the Mayor and James got to see the community garden work and hear from the students about the Crack It! Project.

Kathy Hughes, partnership manager from Develop who led on the project, said: “Develop is extremely impressed with the commitment shown by each young person and how much they have grown as individuals throughout this project. We really enjoyed seeing their faces when they received their individual awards of personal achievements at their award ceremony... They are all a credit to their school."

A spokesman for Lord Grey Academy said: “I'm delighted to see the group really engaged and achieving. This is fantastic and all of them have shared how much of a difference it makes to their mental wellbeing and understanding of how setting goals makes mountains crumble into hills!”

Crack It! has also received a firm recommendation from police Sergeant Gemma Robinson from the Milton Keynes Violence Reduction Team:

She said: “The Crack It! project will provide invaluable support and skills to the young people of Milton Keynes and supports the public health approach to provide positive pathways through early intervention."

The students have paved the way for the next Team who start in January 2021 and will continue the work started in the community garden and also on their personal development.