Tag: Young people
Local project’s films to premiere at Filmhouse
Films produced by local young people screening at the Filmhouse this Saturday
Screen Education Edinburgh has announced that five short films -produced by an innovative new North Edinburgh partnership and made entirely by young people – will receive their premieres at the Edinburgh Filmhouse this Saturday (2 May).
The films will be shown with ten other shorts from their wider BFI Film Academy and CashBack for Creativity projects.
The North Edinburgh partnership, a joint initiative involving Screen Education Edinburgh and Total Craigroyston, with funding from CashBack for Creativity, encourages young people to get involved in filmmaking rather than crime. Five of the films to be shown during the special two hour event were made by young people who are at risk of offending or reoffending.
Irvine Welsh, Patron of Screen Education Edinburgh, said: “If you come from a disadvantaged area, the world can often seem to conspire against you, constraining your vision to the streets around you and the urgent here and now of simply getting by. Cinema is a wonderful tool in combating that horrible malaise, opening up windows into different worlds, and helping us to understand our own ones better through the broadening of our horizons. The skills you learn through being part of a committed team, working on a task that can create a little bit of magic are transferable to other areas of our life.”
The partnership works with groups of 11-19 year olds from the city’s Pilton and Muirhouse area – currently ranked the worst for crime in the whole south east of Scotland – teaching young people film making skills in the evenings. The initiative was set up to improve the lives of families living around Craigroyston Community High School and is a co-ordinated effort to encourage and stimulate young people’s interest in film when they might otherwise be out on the streets.
The short films were all written, directed, filmed and acted in by the youngsters. These films explore issues through drama and music videos including motorcycle theft, the feeling of being alienated, first love and peer pressure.
Graham Fitzpatrick, Creative Manager at Screen Education Edinburgh, said: “The Pilton and Muirhouse area experienced serious issues of crime involving youths, and sometimes children, throughout 2014.
“The aim of this scheme is to help young people engage and deal with their offending issues, whilst giving them positive activities throughout the week, particularly late evenings.”
James Riordan, Lead Youth Development Worker with the Alternative to Crime Project added; “Through being involved in diversionary activities and projects such as the film programme with Screen Education Edinburgh, Young People, who have been involved in anti-social/offending behaviour in North Edinburgh, have the opportunity to be part of something positive and to get a taste of new activities and skills they wouldn’t normally have access to.
“Through working with Screen Education Edinburgh the Group have learned to adapt to different scenarios which in turn has led to them increasing their levels of self-esteem, allowing them to develop as confident Young People”.
Screen Education Edinburgh (formerly Pilton Video) was founded in 2010 to help young people develop and express themselves through film making. Edinburgh born novelist, playwright, storyteller and screenwriter, Irvine Welsh became patron of Screen Education Edinburgh in March last year.
Screen Education Edinburgh is currently running three separate local projects. One, based at FACE North (Focussing on Alternative’s to Crime Edinburgh North) and POP (Preventative Opportunities Programme), is making film drama with groups of 14 to 19 year old males, whilst another focuses on music video production with 10-12 years olds in four local primary schools.
The third supports children and youth workers based out of the Muirhouse Millennium Centre, providing film skills training to the workers, helping them to support large groups of young people in their first forays into film production.
This partnership was funded through the CashBack for Creativity scheme, part of a wider £45 million Scottish Government initiative which reinvests the proceeds recovered from criminals for the benefit of young people.
Saturday’s event at the Filmhouse will showcase the films to parents, friends, the community, councillors and guests.
The screening will also incorporate films from all Screen Education Edinburgh’s CashBack for Creativity projects, including; Score Scotland, Panmure School, MYPAS Dalkeith, Bridges Project Musselburgh, Edinburgh Young Carers and from the advanced BFI Film Academy South East of Scotland initiative.
Exam time: good luck to all candidates
Learning Minister praises hard work ahead of exams
Minister for Learning Dr Alasdair Allan has wished all pupils and students well ahead of this year’s national exam period.
Today sees the start of the exams, with Drama and Economics the first subjects to be taken. There’s then 28 days of exams – administered by the Scottish Qualifications Authority – that finish on Friday 5 June.
Dr Allan praised pupils and students for their hard work so far this year, supported by their parents and the commitment of teachers, headteachers, colleges and local authorities.
In addition to National 5s, Intermediates, existing Highers and Advanced Highers, this year’s exam process will see new Highers examined for the first time.
Dr Allan said: “The exams are the culmination of a lot of hard work over the school year and I know that across Scotland, pupils, parents, teachers, headteachers, colleges and local authorities have been preparing intensively to get to this point.
“Scottish education now offers more flexible learning opportunities for our young people. I offer my best wishes to candidates preparing to sit an exam and to those completing SQA courses that do not involve a final exam.
“This year marks an important milestone in the ongoing implementation of Curriculum for Excellence with the introduction of the new Higher.
“Curriculum for Excellence has been designed to equip our young people with the skills they need to succeed both in Scotland and in the global workplace, with local authorities having the freedom to shape education to meet the needs of our pupils, whatever their background.”
And Good Luck to all students from NEN too!
Connor joins the Muirhouse Millennium A Team!
Yet another young volunteer joins us from the council run Scheme, financially helping 16 & 17 into work or education and volunteering (writes James McGinty).
Young Connor joins our Young Team Chris Paul and Dale doing the many tasks that are required to run a successful Community Centre. Chris is pictured enjoying the morning sunshine and tending to the daffodils, maintaining a bright and cheerful garden for our community to enjoy!
Working It Out with Tomorrow’s People
Tomorrow’s People are taking referrals for their next Working It Out course that starts this month. The Working It Out course supports unemployed young people – 16-24 yrs – to gain experience and build skills to enter into further training or employment.
Every course is made up of 14 young people, with the majority of the programme spent working on community challenges. These challenges help build a young person’s employability skills, experience, team-work skills and self-esteem.
The challenges benefit the local community and give an opportunity for young people to be seen doing something positive in their local community.
Recent challenges have included:
- Painting the offices of the MS Therapy Centre, Leith
- Building and maintaining Pilton Community Garden,
- Applying anti-climb paint to roofs of Pilton Equalities Project,
- Conservation work at Hopetoun House and South Queensferry
- Painting the sports area at Drylaw Neighbourhood Centre
- Assisting in the building and maintaining of Cyclone Gipsy Brae Trails Mountain Bike Track
- Landscaping and planting trees as part of the North Edinburgh Grows project
- Painting the visitors centre at Glenkinchie Whiskey Distillery, East Lothian.
The programme runs for 16 weeks – places are limited but young people living in North Edinburgh are prioritised.
For further information telephone 0798 066 9019 or email wio.edinburgh@tomorrows-people.co.uk
Drylaw Skatepark: final consultation event
Last chance to have your say on Drylaw Skatepark
Drylaw Community Association and Edinburgh and Lothian Greenspace Trust will be holding a final consultation event on the new skatepark this Wednesday (15 April) from 5.30 – 6.30pm in Drylaw Neighbourhood Centre.
Go along, have a look at what’s being planned and have your say – the organisers are particularly keen to hear the views of young people.
Last gasp for tobacco displays
Ban on displaying tobacco in small shops comes into force today
A ban on displaying tobacco in small shops and convenience stores comes into force today. The display of tobacco products has been illegal for large stores and supermarkets since 2012 but smaller retailers were given more time to implement the legislation.
From today, the display of tobacco products is prohibited in all premises and the ban has been welcomed by public health campaigners.
Action on Smoking and Health (Ash) says the ban is an ‘important step forward’. Welcoming the ban, Hazel Cheeseman, director of policy at Ash, said: “Two-thirds of smokers start before the age of 18, so it is vital that everything is done to put tobacco out of sight to protect future generations.
“The display ban in small shops will work hand in hand with standardised packs, which will be introduced in May 2016, to further protect children from glitzy tobacco packaging.”
Retailers’ organisations say the ban is unnecessary and that there is not enough proof that it will have a real effect on child smoking rates. There also believe there are other more effective means of stopping children from taking up smoking.
The Tobacco Retailers’ Alliance, said: “The introduction of the display ban into larger shops hasn’t even been evaluated, so how do we know it will work in smaller shops? Of course retailers will need to comply with the law but this is a further unnecessary measure that will hit small businesses.
“There will be real difficulties around its application, including longer transaction times, and the costs of implementation such as the installation of new gantries. Coming on top of plain packaging, it is an unnecessary burden on shops already struggling with red tape.”
The organisation says tobacco represents about a third of the average newsagent’s turnover and says the Government should crack down harder on the tobacco black market and increase resources to enforce the existing law on the prohibition of sales to young people.
Cancer Research UK’s director of cancer prevention, Alison Cox, said: “Smoking kills 100,000 people every year in the UK. It’s great that tobacco will no longer be in plain view of children and young people every time they go into a shop.
“Research shows that children exposed to tobacco displays are more likely to start smoking and removing these eye-catching, colourful walls of cigarettes will protect them from tobacco marketing.”
PY’s ‘Giggers’ vote to focus on animals – and unicorn protection!
To coincide with the Scottish Independence Referendum in September, Pilton Youth & Children Project’s ‘Get Involved Group’ (GIG) undertook a ‘Democracy Project’ over several months.
The young people explored all the arguments about both sides of the independence debate and also found out about the roots of British democracy -did you know that only very rich people and only men used to get the vote?
The project ended with two performances of a play staged by the young people.
There were sketches about the working class people and suffragettes who fought and died for their right to vote and a sketch about a fictitious family in Pilton, whose kids eventually persuaded their parents to miss ‘Storage wars’ to go and cast their vote!
The young people performed brilliantly and all their weeks of hard work were well worth it as the audience gave them a standing ovation. Well done to the ‘Giggers’!
Following on from the GIG project about democracy, the young people in the ‘Get Involved Group’ went through a democratic process of identifying what the GIG should focus on next.
After much discussion, they unanimously voted for the next topic to be ‘Animal Welfare’ as this is something they care deeply about.
They are in the process of developing a ‘Dog Dirt Free’ zone around the PYCP building, as many children play there, but unfortunately people are letting their dogs foul there and not cleaning it up.
The group recently had a visit from Rachel Bliss from The Dogs Trust who spoke about the many aspects of Dog Welfare and Dog Safety. Rachel has agreed to come back to PYCP to do two more sessions for young people during the Easter holidays.
A couple of youngsters are very keen to look at protection of unicorns, and this is something that the workers are trying to figure out how best to tackle this subject-without shattering their illusions about unicorns being real!
Photos: (1) Suffragettes scene from GIG play, and (2) GIG trip to Cosmos to celebrate their West End Theatre run!
Pilton Youth & Childrens Project (PYCP)
Listening to young people in North Edinburgh
North Neighbourhood Partnership is taking forward the Youth Talk initative as part of ‘Engaging Young People’ priority identified in both Inverleith and Forth Neighourhood Partnerships’ community plans. Youth Talk, originally developed in Liberton/Gilmerton where it was well-received, gives young people an opportunity to talk about facilities, activities and services in their local area.
It has now been launched in the Craigroyston Community High School, Royal High School and Broughton High School, where pupils were asked to vote/rate their local services. The results will be collated after the Easter break and the young people will then be gathered to map out their suggestions and discuss these in more detail.
It is intended that the outcome of the Youth Talk initiative will inform future service development and third sector commissioning. For more information contact info@totalcraigroyston.co.uk or scott.donkin@edinburgh.gov.uk
MYDG takes the plunge!
MYDG young people, staff, colleagues, partners & community are going to swim for 24 hours in order to raise money for the groups & activities and the work they do with young people in North Edinburgh.
Please support MYDG by donating through “just giving”
PLEASE TEXT MYDG97 followed by your amount (£1-£10) to 70070
Or visit
https://www.justgiving.com/
Thank you for your support and contributions
You can keep posted on the lengths covered: @MuirhouseYouth on twitter!
Joanne Stewart