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Easter activities, plans for the summer

We are doing a joint project with CDI, 5 days where you can learn DJing skills, spit lyrics, and use the recording studio. These days are the 6th and 7th April, as well as the 14th, 15th and 16th.

funding won for trip to spain, half term fun coming up

We have some great news- we got the funding! We’re now planning a trip to Spain with the youth centre, having secured some lovely money from the YOF panel. Thanks to Abingdon Youth centre for giving

snow delays, young parent's group

Hello! Two weeks have gone by so it's time for another youth club update.

We stayed open all through the snow, nothing stops us. The only thing that had to be changed was our YOF bid! We were

still open despite the snow!

First week back at youth club is going well :) We opened for the first time since Christmas on Monday... But it was a very quiet night due to snow! We still opened for the rest of the week though,

Black History Month at Blackbird Leys Youth Centre October 2009In Britain, October is Black History Month and this year we celebrated in a number of ways. We looked at the achievements of Black scientists, writers, engineers and freedom fighters, learning a little bit about many different figures. There was an array of books written by or about famous Black people.

On Saturday the 24th of October the youth club and the African-Caribbean Project jointly presented a day of celebration of Black history. In the Glow Hall, African-Caribbean food was available (free chicken and fried dumplings to all youth club members), along with cards and posters with a focus on the Black community. There was music from Natty and Cornerstone and the chance to have your photo taken for future generations to look at.

Upstairs, in the main youth club room, there was the chance to design and paint a T-shirt which reflected your identity. Some people chose to paint flags representing all of the countries which they know their family have links to, whilst others just painted their names or football team. The designs were bright, diverse and attractive -just like our young people.

Natty Mark taught an African History workshop and shared his knowledge around the achievements of great African leaders and their societies. He told us the story of Yaa Asantewa, a great leader of the Ashanti people, who resisted colonial power in Ghana in 1900. The young people in that workshop
told us that they had found it very interesting and that they wanted to learn more.

We had a Black History quiz with a £10 HMV voucher as the first prize and a Levi Roots cookbook as the second prize. All of the answers were in the posters and information in youth club but it wasn’t an easy feat and you had to spend time to complete the quiz. We had to decide between two winners with a tie-breaker question and Kiah and Jay won the prizes. There was a second Levi Roots book for the winner of the adult entries.

On Wednesday the 28th of October, a small group of young people visited the Imperial war Museum in London to see the From War to Windrush Exhibition. This told the stories of some of the thousands of West Indian men and women who chose to fight for Britain in the First and Second World Wars. There were also many Black servicemen and women fighting in both wars who were born in Britain.

We had the chance at the museum to look around the Holocaust exhibition, a permanent exhibition which explores the horrific treatment in Germany of not only Jewish people, but also people with disabilities or learning difficulties, gay men, gypsies, the many mixed race people living in Germany and others. The video footage, photographs and other exhibits were powerful and distressing but we left feeling that we had learned about something really important- what happens when we don’t address the issues of prejudice. We crossed London on the underground and returned on the train- an adventure in itself!

[IMAGE "../../centres/images/bhm09.jpg" alt="t-shirts, mostly!"]

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