Two of my Article drafts

Article 1 – main (teenagers)

My name is Emily and this is my story

Recently, Culture East have organised a competition for teenagers to open up and share their personal stories about their experiences with youth clubs. This is Emily Davis, she is one of the fortunate winners, who got to speak up about her feelings and experience. I hope you like it.

My name is Emily, and I volunteer as a youth worker at Nottingham Youth club. I’m 19 years old and this is my story.

I’m happy I got to do what I love at such a young age, because I know a lot of children my age are not as privileged as me. That’s why I do it. I help children that need that extra help. I’m an ex member of Nottingham Youth club. My life never started out so good. At the age of seven I was diagnosed with dyslexia, I found it hard to go to school and concentrate because of the fact that I couldn’t spell easy words such as ‘shop’ or park’. Throughout my school life I was picked on, called all the names under the sun. Because of this I felt isolated. Different. And above all the names I had picked for myself Stupid. But little did I know that being ‘different’ was a good thing and would help me reach my potential.

At the age of 14 I had so low self-esteem that I pictured a grey dull life with me doing nothing but watching Jeremy Kyle all day, ‘claiming’ benefits and mopping around feeling sorry for myself. I was feed up feeling this way. All I wanted to do is to find a back bone and yell, scream at myself to fix up and find the confidence in myself.  I got into deep depression. Some day’s it got really bad that I wouldn’t even leave my bed. My mum did all she could, but it was hard as she also had to worry about her other 3 children with no help from our dad.

My best friend moved one day, and when she came to visit me. She told me that she had been spending a lot of her time in a place called ‘Nottingham youth club’ and she would like me to come with her. At first I was scared. Scared of what the people would think of me. If they would hate me. But after some reassurance she told me that everything would be okay and that they are not judging the help people like us. People like us? What did that mean? But I thought for once I would just give it a go and see what I felt.

The place was big. It was filled with slides, swings, sand, thousands of toys. And that was just the outside. In the inside it was filled with a big green kitchen, a play area where children played computer games, a sofa to relax. A computer room for children to play games on the computer. A room which is filled with thousands of instruments for the children to play and a basketball court for children to play sports. After the tour I was advised to join up with the youth club giving them my personal details and we were off to play. The next couple of weeks, I had gained friends that liked me for who I was and not for the fact that I had a learning difficulty.

That’s when I met her. Bianca one of the workers there. I told her about my problems and she helped me with gaining the confidence, the pride and the courage to pass my GCSE’s and to believe in myself. Each week we would go through all my work and finish it to the best of my ability. Especially English she helped me as best as she could and I did great. No thanks to her. I just couldn’t believe someone so young wanted to help someone like me. At this time she was only 23 and was willing to be a good carer. From that moment I know that youth clubs changed people’s life for the better.

I found out I passed my GCSE I couldn’t believe my luck. The best news was that I got a B in English which surprised everyone especially my teacher and my mum. I had picked Leyton Sixth form as my chose of education I decided to study Level 3 Health and social care as I decided that I wanted to help children like me that needed that extra boost. Fast forward, to now and I am in a happy place. I was offered a place at Oxford for next year.

So I guess, what I am saying is that youth clubs change thousands of people’s life for the better. I hope that you will have the courage to be like me and join.

I’m Emily and this is my story. Being different is okay and it helps us become who we are.

This story clarifies the reason why we should save youth clubs. Youth clubs tribute to helping children learn to the best of their potentials. Don’t be the one to let every down and help save youth clubs. In the past, Culture East has helped in the past with donations to various youth clubs across East London.

Sign up today and help keep Youth Club’s open.

Petition’s to join!

Youth Engagement Projects

https://wellcomecollection.org/rawminds?gclid=CKmuy-nputQCFaS87QodUGoJEA

 Article 2 (snapchat article)

Is it really worth closing down youth clubs?

You want the world to be a crime free place, right?

Youth clubs that once used to be for children during the holidays and after school have decreased quite quickly over the past years. More and more reports have been made that youth clubs have closed down.

But why have they been closed down?

Money cut’s in general. As the government feels like there isn’t a point of paying money towards something to help children better they’re selves. But though that is the normal explanation, there have been reports in the past that youth clubs have been closed down for being in bad conditions or for invading space of making new houses.

So what happens after?

There have been reports of increased crime rates, from where children feel isolated and neglected that they resolve to crime and normally end up in a really bad place. As they don’t have the stability and guidance from the youth club they normally they feel like they have no one to talk too. So they think why not? Why not do something fun and exciting such as crime?

It’s not rocket science to know what the consequence of crime is, but what people don’t know is that these children not desperate need of help and without our help things are going to get really bad. When are people going to start to help? How much people need to die or hurt for us as citizens of the world to tribute and make a change? This needs to stop and it will only get worse by closing down Youth clubs.

Being a parent you want to do best for your child, right? Imagine the look on a parents face finding out the worse has happened to their child. Parents feel useless with the fact that they can’t help their child with all the problems in their lives. Most children that attend youth clubs either don’t have parents, or the parents not in a right place to give their full attention to them. As sad as this sounds youth clubs are more likely a child’s ‘parent’.

You can see the effects of how youth clubs closing down has a huge impact on children.

Youth engagement Project

Click here for more information: https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=petitions+for+keeping+youth+clubs+open&sourceid=ie7&rls=com.microsoft:en-GB:IE-Address&ie;=&oe;=&gfe_rd=cr&ei=Tek_WfarCqaB3gOOx5vYDw&gws_rd=ssl#q=petitions+for+youth+clubs]&spf=1497360734190