Outline
Making Pals worked with a group of thirteen 16-18-year-olds while they were working on a Young Bristol & National Citizen Service a two-week social action project. They aimed to;
- Raise awareness of the project with younger people
- Recruit volunteers to spend time with older people
- Challenge the perception that younger people do not want to spend
time with older people
What We Did
Making Pals worked with the team at Young Bristol to spend time in two care homes in North Bristol, Frenchay House and Quarry House. They used this experience to understand what spending time in care homes is like and how to encourage other younger people to get involved.
Over the two weeks, the group worked to encourage young people to sign up to volunteer with older people, collecting contact details and interests so that young people could be matched with older people who they had things in common with. They did this by creating a flyer and sign up form to distribute at fundraising events. The group ran three fundraising and awareness-raising events. These were a supermarket bag pack, a car wash and a bake sale.
In addition to this, the group spent some time working with the management of Young Bristol to facilitate an ongoing partnership between both organisations.
Ella C, NCS Volunteer said: “I really enjoyed working with older people because it was interesting listening to their past lives. It also gave me an insight into what job opportunities there may be in the future.”
Outcomes
- £571.76 raised that will be donated to Alive!
- 22 younger volunteers recruited for the Making Pals project
- Meetings with senior management of Young Bristol set up to arrange a partnership between the two organisations
- In excess of 25 hours spent with older people
