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Behind the scenes of our EmpowHER programme

11 October 2018

  • Blog

Over the past couple of weeks, the EmpowHER team at UK Youth has been busy delivering youth worker training in the South West, West Midlands and North West. To celebrate #DayoftheGirl, we wanted to give you an exclusive insight into the training so we hand you over to Yasmin, our amazing Project Coordinator on the programme.

Run in partnership with the British Red Cross and Young Women’s Trust, with funding from Spirit of 2012 and the #iwill Fund, EmpowHER supports young women and girls to lead change in their communities, increase their self-esteem and build wellbeing by providing inclusive and meaningful social action opportunities.

The youth organisations involved are set to deliver face-to-face activity sessions with young women and girls, focusing on the themes of individuals’ rights, empowerment and resilience alongside their own personal development, with the chance to explore present role models and inspirational women in history.

The young women and girls will then be supported to give back to their community through inclusive and meaningful social action opportunities, provided by the British Red Cross.

Our whirlwind training tour began at Young Gloucestershire, followed by Positive Youth Foundation in the West Midlands and ended at Wigan Youth Zone.

Each event brought together various local youth clubs from the regions, with each youth worker providing a diverse range of experiences, expertise and insight into the young women and girls that they’ll be reaching, along with how best to support them throughout the programme.

Setting the scene for the day, we kicked off with an inspirational women themed icebreaker followed by a presentation on the vision and need for a project like EmpowHER. Relaying some worrying statistics, such as how one in four (25%) girls and young women between the ages of seven and 21 describing themselves as “very happy”, and an increased likelihood of their motivation and confidence plummeting during teenage years, the general feeling in the room was that EmpowHER is a timely and compelling way to tackle such trends.

Another key theme for the day was learning – whether that’s from the young women and girls themselves, youth workers or other partners involved in the programme, learning is fundamental to EmpowHER – as is applying these findings to ongoing delivery to make sure the programme is the best it can be. Anna and Becky from our Impact and Learning team took the time to reaffirm this message and highlight the tools available at the youth workers’ disposal to support this.

After lunch, (the delicious mozzarella sticks at Gloucester’s training are still a topic of discussion amongst colleagues!) we delved into the activities that youth workers could potentially run with the young women and girls, with the British Red Cross covering the social action element of the programme.

We closed the day by talking through leadership opportunities, provided by the Young Women’s Trust, and bounced around ideas on how best to collaborate within each region.

All in all, the training days were a huge success – each day felt unique yet the excitement for the programme and an eagerness to get started was shared by all. We can’t wait to start to engage young people with our EmpowHER programme and see the change that they create within themselves and in their local community.

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