It’s a new year and a new start
We’re back running online sessions with our youth groups on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Thursdays and Fridays including: podcasting, games (video and board games), GCSE maths tutoring, goal setting, and self love workshops. Session started back up this week and we were thrilled to see and catch up with all of our young people again after the Christmas break.
This week we ran six sessions overall with our girl groups, SkyWay Futures, Older Futures and our Older group. With there being quite a lot of talk around the closing of schools, and the fact that GCSE exams have been cancelled and replaced with an assessment to calculate grades – now more than ever we want to make sure our young people have all of the extra support they can get. We’re making sure to give them all of the help that we can with their studies so they can achieve the best results possible, and are running maths tutoring sessions three times a week.
Our youth workers are also back out on the streets doing detached work in the community. Detached work is vital in engaging young people who could use our services, especially now as we get into winter with all of the challenges that the Pandemic brings, both at home and from a mental health perspective. Domestic problems at home and mental health/substance abuse issues have all increased since the first lockdown. With things at such a critical point right now, we’re working hard to make sure that we’re reaching as many young people as possible who need support during this challenging time; winter and the end of the school year mean this work is more important now than ever.
You can find our timetable here:
Food parcels
We are also continuing to hand out food and essential good packages, as well as fulfilling track and trace deliveries to community members who are having to self-isolate as we head into the new year. With more people signing up for help, we’re now handing out 165 packages weekly. These packages go to families and vulnerable individuals in and around Hackney who are high risk, struggling financially, or having to self isolate and who would otherwise struggle to support themselves.
2021 and Beyond
As cases of the novel coronavirus go up, the new year promises to be a challenging one. We will be at the forefront of things supporting the youth and local community in Hackney as we have been doing up until this point. We know things are hard, but together we believe that we can overcome the issues that we’re currently facing. Yes, it’s difficult but this is why we do the work that we do. All of the team here at SkyWay are committed to putting in the work that’s needed to get through this together. We will continue to seek to expand the impact of our work and help as many people as possible as we move further into 2021.
To support our work and help us in continuing to support our young people and the community, please donate now.