The Play & Grow Project will help young people aged 11-17 creating a space for younger children to engage in a nature play and grow space in their local community.
We are pleased to have started this new project as part of Project SMILES.
Play & Grow will allow young people to be part of the development of our outside areas at the Hulme Centre. MAV UK's Community Hulme Hall will develop play and grow areas outside.
We were encouraged by the help by Greater Manchester Youth Network (GMYN) who kick started this nature project during their Citizenship Project held at Hulme Centre during the school summer holidays. The summer programme started in July 2021 and ended a month later August 2021. The project was delivered with the support of MAV UK. MAV UK completed 3 workshops throughout the summer project. the workshops were led by Patsy McKie. The young people responded to Patsy's story of hope, by working on a nature project which supported the ethos of Play & Grow.
We were encouraged by the work completed by GMYN. They created small nature pots and shared the experience with MAV UK's neighbouring service African Caribbean Care Group. (ACCG). The experience was enjoyed by the young people and our local senior citizens, who took part in the creation of these small nature gardens of hope. We will include ACCG in future sessions of the Play & Grow Project.
The Play & Grow Project was developed in consultation with local services and local people. MAV UK made a significant investment in our website and improved our social media platform during the COVID-19 pandemic. This helped us keep connected with local people. Our research into the impact of pandemic has helped provide the evidence need for The Play & Grow Project. As we begin to open services fully, we will use our newly fitted outside terrace, funded by the Heritage Lottery COVID-19 Recovery Fund to expend outside areas at our community hall. We will create a living moving garden space, where we have naturally grown vegetation. Young people will lead the project with the help of our volunteers. The funding secured for this project, will allow our young people to visit local green spaces and outdoor areas, to learn, see and feel the values of a clean, safe outdoor spaces. We will then allow the young people to bring these experiences back to our local community, creating a green outdoor play and learn space which will support the learning of nursery aged children.
Please click on photo below to get more information on how our local community will be supporting the IN OUR NATURE projects.
We will update this blog as the project unfolds over the coming months.