Mancetter Memorial Hall

Marlpit Community Centre

Project Contact:  JoJo Yohannes, email jojo@teamviy.com

Mansfield Wildlife Rescue

Mansfield Wildlife Rescue is a registered charity dedicated to rescuing, rehabilitating and caring for injured, abandoned and orphaned native wildlife across Nottinghamshire, Derbyshire, South Yorkshire and Lincolnshire.

With support from Mansfield District Council via the UK Shared Prosperity Fund (UKSPF), a previously unused woodland area on site has now been transformed into an engaging outdoor play and exploration space for children.

The project:

At Mansfield Wildlife Rescue, VIY delivered a series of outdoor improvements to create a fun, nature-based play environment that encourages exploration, creativity and active play. The East Midlands team took time to carefully design the space around how children naturally explore and interact with outdoor environments, helping to create an engaging and imaginative play experience.

Key works included:

• Construction of a large timber teepee play structure
• Creation of a castle-themed adventure play area
• Installation of A-frame climbing structures and balance beams
• Development of a fire pit and gathering space
• Repurposing an old wooden wheel found on site into a unique slide with steps, giving new life to existing materials while celebrating the site’s history
• Entrance improvements with new sleeper edging to replace a muddy and uneven pathway with a safer, more welcoming access route

All timber features were built for long-term use and treated with Dulux exterior stains and preservatives to help protect them from the weather and ensure the space can be enjoyed for years to come.

Overall, these improvements have transformed an unused woodland area into a creative and welcoming outdoor environment for visiting children and families.

Community impact:

The new play area has brought a previously unused part of the site to life, giving children and families a fun and engaging space to explore, play and connect with nature. The woodland area now provides opportunities for imaginative play, outdoor learning and discovery, complementing the charity’s wider work around wildlife, conservation and community engagement.

The venue has since shared a video of the space in use and some lovely feedback – and it’s really special seeing children experience it for the first time. Watch it here.

The young people:

15 young people took part in the project at Mansfield, referred by Inspire Culture, Mansfield Jobcentre Plus, Pollyteach Mansfield and Vision West Notts College

• 13.5% of learners were NEET , 73% were EET at Risk , 13.5% EET not at risk
• 47% of learners had a physical disability, learning difficulty/disability or mental health condition

14  Entry Level 3 City & Guilds accreditations were achieved;
4 x Introducing Paint Finishing Skills

6 x Introducing Site Carpentry Skills

4 x Health & Safety in Places of Work

What young people have to say about the experience:

‘”I really enjoyed getting my hands dirty and learning from my mistakes, improving my eye for detail. Working alongside mentor Kane who is amazing and supported and treated us as equals not children – the wildlife rescue itself is very welcoming place with very friendly people”

‘”I really enjoyed working with VIY, it was really good and I enjoyed working with the mentors. It was my sort of thing working with my hands as I like that kind of work rather than paperwork’

Meadowbrook Pupil Referral Unit

Meadowbrook College is a PRU (Pupil Referral Unit) that works with young people who are excluded, or at risk of exclusion, from mainstream schools and among the most vulnerable young people in Oxfordshire.

Our work with Meadowbrook covered the involvement of 18 of their students, all aged 15/16, as volunteers in the refurbishment of four community facilities between August 2017 and June 2018.

The work carried out across the four facilities (Barton Leisure Centre and Ferry Leisure Centre in Oxford, and Meadowbrook College’s own campuses in Abingdon and Bicester) included skills such as painting and decorating, plumbing, plastering and tiling, and the young people were mentored on the job by a team of three local professional tradespeople. In the process, the young participants contributed more than 500 volunteer hours whilst working towards achieving multiple City & Guilds Entry Level 3 trade skills accreditations.

One of the participants, 15-year-old Jason Higginson, had been at Meadowbrook for a year prior to signing up for the VIY project. He was attracted by the opportunity to volunteer and do something for his community at the same time as learning new skills and improving his employment prospects. He successfully achieved the Entry Level City & Guilds qualification and is now targeting a starter job as a painting and decorating apprentice on leaving Meadowbrook in June 2019.

New Routes

Newark Citizens Advice

North Wootton Village Hall

Having spread our wings across Norfolk since 2022 through the Community Renewal Fund, including a great project at Kaset Skatepark, we’re back in West Norfolk working with King’s Lynn & West Norfolk Council through the UK Shared Prosperity Fund, renovating three community venues.

The project:

Here we were helping North Wootton Village Hall to double the size of their storage space for their vital maintenance equipment by building a new external storage unit, and decorating parts of the venue externally to help the village hall to become the most appealing it can be.

The impact:

• Over 15 local young people volunteered on the project, referred from local youth partners including YMCA Norfolk, Norfolk Youth Justice Service and Headway
• 10 young people gained an Entry Level 3 City & Guilds accreditation in either Carpentry or Painting & Decorating
• We’re working closely with Boost Norfolk, not only on referring young people to this project and others locally, but to support our young people post-project with further employability and job-searching
• Take a look at what Bob Angell, in charge of maintenance at North Wootton Village Hall, told us:

“The team have completed a fantastic job on the tasks set out. They have been a pleasure to have working here.

It is so important today to have an organization such as yours, that can give young adults the opportunity to try their hand at construction. Having run a business myself in the locksmithing profession for over thirty years, I know that first hand, as some of my staff that I employed had not even used a screwdriver when they joined us as young men. Teaching is invaluable and from my opinion, Dave and Dom did just that. Brilliant.

Maintenance on a village hall such as ours, which is now over 87 years old, is continuous. In the last seven years since the present management team took on the task, we have brought an almost derelict building back into our village community, so VIY have helped us enormously. A job very well done.”

The Norwich and Norfolk Deaf Social and Sport Club

Norfolk & Suffolk Careers Hub

We’ve delivered a highly successful schools programme in partnership with The Careers and Enterprise Company since 2016. Originally delivering our programme to schools in two Local Enterprise Partnerships, Birmingham and London, the programme developed into a national programme reaching 25 out of 38 LEPs, partnering with over 15 Careers Hubs in the process. This is in addition to the SEN schools, Pupil Referral Units (PRUs), Alternative Provisions (APs) and Virtual Schools we’ve worked in, and had learners referred from, too.

See our work creating a community cafe in partnership between Doncaster Careers Hub and 10 local SEN schools here

In 2024 we’ve been supported by Norfolk & Suffolk Careers Hub to complete two local one week community workshops, both benefitting local community spaces whilst enabling local students to have their first taste of the construction industry – and/or the VIY experience before a larger community project.

At John Grant School, a SEN school in Caister, over 15 of their own students took ownership and co-designed this project to improve their own environment internally and externally, by redecorating one of their breakout spaces and constructing planters for their external space. A project also supported by our programme across Great Yarmouth through the Know Your Neighbourhood fund.

We were also able to create additional outdoor furniture and a dry store for tools and equipment at Marlpit Community Centre in Norwich, where we’ve delivered previous improvement projects through this Norwich City Council fund.

Impact of these projects:

• 28 young volunteers gained hands-on construction skills
• Many gained an Entry Level 3 City & Guilds accreditation in Carpentry or Painting & Decorating during these week long projects
• John Grant School told us: “Our students benefitted from working with unfamiliar people they didn’t know, both VIY staff and other students from in school. Those students who have never done any work experience / volunteering before really got stuck in.“
• Marlpit Community Centre benefitted greatly from additional works completed through this VIY workshop: “The work carried out by VIY, is fabulous. We are delighted that we now have a store in our wildlife garden which will enable us to keep all the tools and equipment needed in a safe dry place. The garden bench is lovely and will give our users a nice shaded place to sit and enjoy the wildlife. The two tables are fabulous as they can be moved and used in all outside areas at the centre, and really set the whole outside off as a usable space.”
• Ed Sellwood, COO & Co-Founder of VIY, shares the value of short & sharp experiences for young people, having overseen many VIY workshops like this one: “It’s about that first taste of construction, an Entry Level 3 City & Guilds accreditation that acts as the first step on the construction career ladder, all for young learners who may not otherwise have access to this kind of training, or for whom a more practical way of learning is better for their development.”

Get in touch to have a chat about delivering projects or workshops in an educational setting near you

Norfolk and Suffolk Islamic Mission

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