Our Summer NCS programme comes to an end

The NCS team at Brentford FC Community Sports Trust share the highlights of the programme from across the summer holidays! 

Across the summer we had the opportunity to work with 277 participants from over 40 schools from the boroughs of Ealing, Hounslow, Hillingdon, Richmond and Kingston. The NCS programme consisted of three phases: Be Epic, Live Life and Do Good. All participants involved had the opportunity to experience each phase, throughout the past 2 months in different areas in west London. 

Participants were also responsible for creating and delivering 21 social action projects about issues their local area is currently facing which they had a passion for changing. We had projects around the environment and littering, the NHS, sports/education and healthy living, sexual assault and harassment, homelessness, and mental health. 

Be Epic 

Every team this summer had the opportunity to take part in a range of residential-style activities, at our centralised venue at West Thames College. Participants had the chance to take part in rock climbing, giant inflatable obstacle courses and different other other challenging activities. Finally, all young people also had the opportunity to take part in watersports at Brentford Lock. Both kayaking and katakanuing were the activities offered, delivered by TeamKeane, and was one of the most enjoyed activities of the whole Summer! 

Live Life 

In our live life phase, young people had the opportunity to develop their public speaking skills and increase their confidence with facilitators from Toastmasters. Students were given support when writing and presenting their very own speeches on topics they were passionate about to their teams. 

Our enterprise day then featured young people working with their NCS staff teams to get a better understanding of business and the skills that employers are looking for when it comes to moving into the world of work.  

Kayoade Damali from BBC’s The Apprentice engaged with all participants across the summer, by delivering workshops focused in business, enterprise and brand development. Our participants highlighted the benefits of having the chance of learning from the key speaker and entrepreneur about all of the advantages and disadvantages of entrepreneurship and how success and failure is part of the journey. 

Some of our professional partners bMoneywize, The Metropolitan Police, The British Army, SixteenSixty Theatre Company Brentford FC & Brentford FCCST also worked with our participants to complete various enterprise challenges. These challenges put our participants newly developed skills to the test as they were tasked with solving real-life problems existing businesses face on a day-to-day basis.  

Do Good 

The social action and volunteering phase of the programme saw our participants take part in over 8000 total combined hours of social action, our largest total since Brentford FC Community Sports Trust became a provider of the NCS programme! Students took part in volunteering activities with Guide Dogs, Blondin Consortium, Bedfont Lakes, Gunnersbury Park, Ealing Council, Cultivate London, London Museum of Water and Steam, West Ealing Library and Southfield Rec. Each partner challenged young people to actively do some good in their local area by getting involved with their services and supporting their community development and engagement. We were also lucky enough to have worked with the Ealing Race and Equality commission, where they worked with our participants to develop their ideas around direct social action, along with facilitating discussions around race and equality and participants experiences with discrimination. 

 

With the Coronavirus pandemic putting an incredible amount of pressure on all aspects of life over the past year, it was great to see the fantastic work produced by all participatns in their communities, alongside learning some brilliant new skills. We are incredibly proud of all our participants that took part in this summer’s programme. 

This Summer we turned no you can’t, into no we can, and we cannot wait to continue working with our partner schools over the academic year leading into next summer’s programme, where we will aim to provide another fantastic NCS experience for our participants.  

To enquire about next years programme please email ncs@brentfordfccst.com  or find out more about our highlights on our Facebook page here https://www.facebook.com/BFCCSTRUST/