Plater Project in Hyndburn update- Including you!
Plater Project in Hyndburn update- Including you!
Tue 21st Jun 2011
You will recall that 35 people from our 6 parishes attended the initial Plater Project workshop in November 2010. Three themes emerged from this meeting: Social Inclusion, Youth Matters and Money Matters. We now have 25 dedicated volunteers from the 6 parishes, working on these themes in 3 workgroups.
We have since held monthly get-togethers of volunteers and with workgroup meetings every fortnight.
We are also developing an online forum hosted by the St. Antony's website to facilitate the easier communication between our volunteers.
The Social Inclusion workgroup had recognised an 'A to Z' of life challenges and chose to start with dementia- how it affects our parishioners and what we can do to help them in practical ways. A demential awareness training event led by Ben Bano was attended by 52 people from across the parishes who all came up with ideas to be applied locally. We thank CSAN for sponsoring the training and everyone for their hospitality.
On 23rd June we will begin training leaders and facilitators for the shared reading groups. Each training session lasts 1.5 hours and will be held for 8 weeks over the summer. we hope to recruit 3-4 people from each parish to run these groups which will assit with improving mental wellbeing, literacy and social skills.
The Youth Matters workgroup are working on 3 projects:
- a 'what's on' guide for youth activities in the parishes
- developing a pilot scheme for helping young people not in employment, education or training
- planning a youth seminar
Our Money Matters Group is working on promoting the growth of the credit unions within parishes, evaluating the information that is provided by the high street banks and raising awareness of the problems of debt and signposting where people can get help.
At the ACT Centre we are also currently helping parishioners with a FREE basic introduction to computers and the internet. If you wish to book a place please telephone the ACT Centre on 01254 238 443.
We also help with unemployment, CV writing, adult literacy and adult numeracy.
If you wish to get involved in the work of the Plater Project, please telephone 01254 238 443 or call into the ACT Centre on Warner Street, Accrington. alternatively, you can email Philip at punsworth@stantonyscentre.org.uk