The Street Outreach Bus project is now into its second year
May, 2009
The bus continues to go out 3 nights a week – Monday (Girls’ Night), Wednesday (Open Night) and Saturday (Late Open Night). We have had good attendances on the nights when we have run special activities, such as the Climbing Wall and Street Entertainers. Everyone enjoyed themselves and we are looking forward to the next special activity. We have a few more lined up for the next month or so. The bus will continue to go out 3 times a week until the end of June. Then we will take it off the road for 2 months. During July and August, Blue Horizon will continue to run off-the-bus activities, such as Duke of Edinburgh Award and Singing/Choral projects. Staff will focus on planning and preparing for Catalyst 09. We anticipate this year’s activities will include a repeat visit to Deep Sea World (Shark Diving) as well as Quad Biking and Go-Karting. Watch this web page for updates – and feel free to give us your suggestions.
Duke of Edinburgh. This year has seen the formation of a new Duke of Edinburgh Award group within Blue Horizon. The group consists of 9 girls, 8 of whom are about to start on their Bronze award and one who is about to start on her Gold award. To obtain their award, the girls need to complete four separate elements. The first is the Service. At Bronze level, this requires the girls to do a 3 month voluntary placement of their choice in the community. The second element is the Physical Activity. This requires the young people to undertake a sport of their choice for one hour a week for 12 sessions. The third element is taken on board a new skill. Again the skill is something of the young people’s choice and can range from craft projects or chess playing to driving lessons. The forth is an expedition. The Expedition has changed somewhat from the days of the walk till dark and then sleep days that we all remember. These days the young people select something of interest to them and do a project on what they find. At the end of each section, the young people are given a certificate in recognition of their achievements at each element so if someone can not complete all four elements, they have formal recognition for what they have done. At Gold level there is another element to complete and that is the Residential. With the help of the Rank Foundation, we have been lucky enough to give one young person a chance to have Tall Ships Experience. This young person will sail from Aberdeen to Poland with the Jubilee Sailing Trust. Whilst on board, she will undertake her Leadership at Sea certificate.
Easter Holidays: The Easter holiday, saw some day activities for the girls in Kincorth. On Good Friday, we took a group of girls for a day trip to Dundee where they took part in ice skating and of course....shopping. We went down on the train. Some girls had never been on a train before so it was like a mini adventure. Many of the girls who came on this trip had never been skating before and so for them, it was a new experience. The girls were given some free time to go shopping in the afternoon. The girls seemed to enjoy their day and have asked when we can do something like it again.
We also took a group of girls to the local stables to do some horse riding. The girls had to prepare their horses for riding by grooming and tacking. Through grooming the horses the girls really formed a bond with them and helped eliminate any nervousness the girls may have had.
Our third activity was a trip to the theatre to see Measure for Measure. This was the first time that the young people had seen Shakespeare performed on the stage. Although the girls seemed to struggle a little with the dated English, the girls enjoyed the chance for a question and answer session with the cast after the performance was finished.
One to one work: The start of the year saw the start of one to one in sports development work with teenage girls. To date we have successfully managed to allocate one young person a place in the local swimming club and another in a local trampolining club.
