With sports, community work and leadership training all getting a look in, half term was packed full of fun activities for the girls at the Baytree Centre.
The week kicked off on the 17th February at Pop Brixton, where for two days, our Spark girls took part in a work experience programme led by Spiral Skills, a Baytree partner at Building Young Brixton (BYB), a group of local organisations committed to developing Brixton’s next generation of leaders. Pop Brixton’s traders ran a prep session with the girls, before they got the know how from the space’s aspiring chefs, fashionistas Make Do And Mend Vintage, the tech wizzes at Blackstar London, and entrepreneurs at Business Launch Pad. The programme was funded by London Youth as part of their Future Talent programme.
On the 19th, we headed to NatWest Group for an employability day, which was also part of Future Talent. The day featured a number of thought provoking activities, workshops and talks, including CV building and a Dragons’ Den style workshop. The five girls who joined us all had shown a strong interest in working in banking and finance and loved learning more about the economy and getting the chance to sharpen their skills from experts in the sector.
On Thursday 20th, we had a rewarding volunteering day at the Brixton Soup kitchen. Prior to the day, the girls collected donations of hygiene and sanitary products as well as food which they brought along with them. The girls served up a tasty breakfast scrambled eggs, spicy beans, toast and chicken nuggets, followed by a lunch of rice with tuna and veg, and sorted clothes donations. The girls learnt more about the reasons behind homelessness and how it’s something that could happen to anyone.
It was great way for the girls to develop their leadership skills, and become active citizens through taking social action. As Character Education is a big part of what we do at Baytree, volunteering gave the girls the chance to put all they’ve learnt at the centre into practice.
For our younger girls, we organised an action packed Sports Day on the 20th in collaboration with Baytree’s BYB partners Marcus Lipton Community Enterprise and Grove Adventure Playground. Alongside yoga and football, the day, which was held at Marcus Lipton in Loughborough Junction and attended by both the girls at Baytree and girls and boys from Grove Adventure Park, also featured a taster session from Netball England and a hip hop dance class from the wonderful Rishan from 3SoulMovement.
