This January eight young people successfully completed the 14-week Re-Evolve Young Leaders Programme.

The programme helped to boost young people’s confidence, increase their employability and improve their team working skills through working collaboratively to deliver projects for the community.  The team worked together brilliantly throughout the programme to achieve their challenges.  They organised a vibrant and very popular textile workshop and clothes swapping event called Recycle & Restyle, which raised awareness of textile waste and creative ways to reuse old clothes and fabrics.
 
They produced a documentary about alternative careers avenues (Watch it here ), which they screened to students at Paddington Academy, Westminster Academy and St.  Georges RC School, where they also facilitated a discussion with students, giving them insightful advice and reflections on career choices and the value of volunteering and work experience when you’re starting out.
 
They also designed and built a new website that documents their work throughout the programme, which you can browse here http://re-evolveyoungleaders.com/Re-Evolve/.  This website project was led by two of the young leaders, who started off with no experienced of website design and taught themselves from scratch.  They then passed on their newly acquired knowledge to the rest of the team through a peer-led tutorial session.
 
In the New Year, the young leaders undertook external work placements with exciting companies that related to their career aspirations.  Isvari Halai, 22, a woman of many talents and interests, joined the programme with ambitions to work in journalism, TV, teaching and museums! We brokered two placements for her – one week as a PA for a film-maker and another two weeks working in the education department of the St.  John’s Ambulance Museum.  She had the opportunity with both placements to make a real impact, designing children’s activities at the museum to make it more accessible for families.
 
Jawaad Kaleem, aged 23, is passionate about a career in TV.  Through getting involved in the film-making project he discovered a talent for editing.  We put him in touch with Living Cinema, where he worked for three weeks as an editing assistant, working on a feature length documentary.  He had an excellent experience, proving himself to be reliable, hard-working with a great eye for detail, and has since renewed his job search, already having had two interviews for editing and runner roles with post production companies.
 
The team’s final challenge was to host a presentation to Vital staff and stakeholders on their experiences and achievements over the 14-week programme.  Once again, this was a fantastic event that was entirely organised and delivered by the young leaders - a true testament to the ownership the group have taken of their work.  The staff at Vital are extremely proud of their achievements and grateful for the contributions they have made to the organisation, and wish them all the best in their future careers.