Harrogate and Knaresborough sixth form students participating in a national citizenship initiative have staged a “movathon” with local disabled people.
The young people – members of the National Citizens Service (NCS) Flying Futures scheme – spent a day at Disability Action Yorkshire’s Claro Road home where they participated in a number of different activities including baking, music, art and playing a variety of games.
The event, which also raised funds for the charity, was the volunteering element of the NCS’s three-stage progamme, which has seen the teenagers attending an outward bounds centre in Norfolk and learning life skills from members of the emergency services.
The “movathon” was devised by the students who not only selected Disability Action Yorkshire as their charity of choice, but also planned the whole day and its component parts.
Disability Action Yorkshire chief executive Jackie Snape said:
I would like to say a massive thank you to the young people from the National Citizens Service (NCS) Flying Futures scheme for choosing us and spending the day with our customers.
Volunteering can be an incredibly rewarding experience for both parties, and we welcome a variety of volunteers to our Claro Road home on a regular basis.
For some of the NCS youngsters this was the first time they had interacted with disabled people, and it was a great success.
Whilst they were with us, they learned about our new buddying initiative, ‘Own Goals’, where we are looking for buddies, in particular young people, to help our customers achieve their ambitious goals, which can be anything from a night out in a pub to hang gliding.
I’m hopeful that their day with our customers might spur some of them to further explore volunteering opportunities and encourage their peers to do likewise.
