News

Our Barrhead Creative Pathways team have been out and about in the town, speaking to other organisations about what would benefit the area, with an eye on what they will do as part of their final project.

The team – made up of 16-19 year olds who are not currently in work, education or training – had a meeting at the local Men’s Shed. The group offer woodworking and other activities for individuals aged 50+ in East Renfrewshire.

We asked about local green-spaces and about ways to potentially work together in the future. The team convinced the Men’s Shed members of their commitment to making a difference in the community. After some friendly negotiations, the men’s shed offered intergenerational skill sharing to us: the young people will be teaching his members computer skills, and in turn the group will teach us woodworking to create pieces we can install in the space. The manager even offered the Men’s Shed meeting room as a facility to hold community meetings.

The team also met with a manager from Young Enterprise Scotland and the leader of a community project called Add2Barrhead, who both loved the Creative Pathways goals and wanted to join forces!

The group are now planning further ways of gauging the community’s views on developing the local environment. In the meantime, they have been working on Employability SQA units, and discussing behaviour in the workplace, and talking about what they might like to do at the end of the programme.

The latest Creative Pathways course has been funded by Barrhead Housing Association, Inspiring Scotland and the Big Lottery Fund’s Our Bright Future programme, which empowers young people to lead progressive change in their communities.