Over 110 school children, parents and business professionals from across Birmingham came together for the final of the Birmingham Civic Society’s ‘Next Generation Awards’. We were very proud to host the event at Highbury (also known as Highbury Hall)!
The Next Generation Awards scheme has been running for thirteen years and worked with over 28,500 young people. Each year approximately 20 Birmingham Schools participate.
The award scheme is an assessed project-based programme for 11-14 year-olds. It is an inclusive project which is great for developing pupils’ skills in team-working, ICT, presentation, creative writing and problem solving, and to help the pupils in Birmingham to become active citizens that contribute positively to future of our city.
This year’s winning project was from a team of students from Turves Green Girls’ School, who presented ‘Elderly Explore’ a project which plans to run events for local older residents to prevent loneliness and social isolation. The girls have been awarded the ‘Newman Prize’ of £1500 and mentoring support to help develop their idea into a reality.
Other finalist projects included;
• Edgbaston High School for Girls – Soil Savers – a project to encourage local schools to compost their waste
• Moseley School & Sixth Form – The 5 A Day Project – a project to ensure that every student at their school have their daily allowance of 5 a day at a centre in school and included the use of a bottle green house at their school to grow produce to sell at their proposed centre
• Bordesley Green Girls’ School & Sixth Form – Anti-social Behaviour Awareness – A project to raise awareness of anti-social behaviour and encourage people to report issues, to seek support and to tackle the causes of anti-social behaviour.
• St Paul’s School – Dream Team – To create a sensory tree or area in Birmingham City Centre to give disabled kids and people a safe area to calm down or relax when they are upset or cannot cope in public.
The Judges were so moved by St Paul’s School’s Dream Team project that they decided to award a second prize of £500 to also make their project a reality.
For more info about the scheme, click here.