Growing landlord Karbon Homes has been working in partnership with the Sunderland AFC Foundation of Light to deliver a range of programmes in Derwentside and Chester-le-Street.
The partnership has just successfully completed a six-week ‘Tackle It’ course to 22 year three pupils at The Grove Primary School in Consett. The course is one of five ‘Tackle It’ courses delivered in the Derwentside area which teaches young people to understand making positive choices and raise awareness of topics such as ASB, racism and their impact on communities.
The topic of racism was identified as an issue in the school and local community, so the course aimed to address this.
During the sessions, the pupils aged 7-8 were encouraged to get involved with a range of activities including writing poems, creating puppet shows and developing their own characters. The activities encouraged them to understand each other’s differences. Each activity was designed with key messages for the pupils to take away with them during and outside of school.
The pupils were mentored by two older students from the Foundation of Light Kicks Youth Club. Both mentors are working towards their Wider Key Skill Qualification in Volunteering and used this time to build up their required hours.
Craig Martin, North and Central Durham Coordinator at The Foundation of Light said: “Throughout these last few weeks, it’s been great to see an increase in awareness of the issues surrounding racism. The pupils are an interesting group, we stripped the course down and created new content to ensure that we were teaching them about the key messages which will have a longer-term impact.
“We delivered the final session at the end of term, where we played games and rewarded the pupils for their hard work to end on a positive note.”
Year 3 teacher, Charlotte Walton, said: “The sessions were very well ran with great enthusiasm and were structured for my class and differentiated. The session in the hall with different agencies was fantastic and great ideas were put across to the children. All the children really enjoyed it and gained information from these events – thank you.”
The ‘Tackle It’ course is a great example of how Karbon Homes is working in partnership with organisations to raise awareness of important issues, benefiting individuals and the wider community.