This February 1A Arts hosted talented young person Noor for a week’s work experience. Here she shares her experience of her week at HCA, including twitter takeovers, camera skill sharing with our older person, a trip to Somerset House and much more!
Monday 11th February 2019 (Day 1):
The day started off by an introduction to the charity, Chloe and Hazel’s role in detail and a tour of the building. I started to look thoroughly through the website and found that there could be some colour and updated information that could be implemented.
Chloe and I then went to Bedford House and on the way there we stuck around some flyers of the trip to the Charlie Brown exhibition. I attended the older people’s yoga class at Millman Street to take some photos. I was particularly interested in the hands and movement because they were all different and represented diversity, life and age, but I think it’s open to interpretation. I think I’ll use some of these photos for my work and develop it.
After this, I met George; who is an older person and we had a lovely chat about photography and he introduced me to a camera which I hadn’t heard of before called a stereo camera, one that takes 3D photos!
I am looking forward to going back on Thursday to see his work and discuss some more! I then came back to the office and did a Facebook post and I never realised that when posting or marketing, it has to be very specific. And that has come to the end of today!
Tuesday 12th February 2019 (Day 2):
I went to Bedford house to meet Elly the marketing coordinator and she introduced me to her role and what marketing involves. We explored social media, a platform that is widely used today by many people. The process of tweeting, putting posts on facebook and the website design, I learned involves a lot of planning and most marketing organisations, charities or companies use a website that helps create and process their posts. HCA uses Lightful. We discussed my social media twitter takeover (a task for the next day) and I learned how the website works.
I then headed back, just in time for poetry which I really enjoyed. I got to know the children and assisted them with their clay models. They knew so much about clay making and the different equipment involved, I also learned lots from them.
Thursday 14th February 2019 (Day 3)
I went to Millman Street to see George and he kindly showed me all the 3D cameras that he had made, that were processed by film.
George also had made a viewer and that was really cool to look through. He explained how photography was like 20 – 30 years ago! I found our session immensely interesting and I once again learned so much! I’d never really interacted with many older people before, and I really enjoyed spending time with George so it was a really nice and interesting experience.
I then came back and worked on my twitter takeover using Lightful, it was useful to have put the information I had learned from Elly into practice. The takeover was a big success!
I attended the creative communications group which I found to be informal and relaxed – we were making a mosaic with shiny paper!
The Trip to Somerset house to see exhibition Good Greif Charlie Brown:
Having only ever heard of Charlie Brown before, I didn’t know what to expect. However, I found that the concepts of the stories are quite complex and sophisticated. The exhibition focused on highlighting some of the issues that young people experience and other topics that anyone could relate to. My favourite part was the exhibition – I got the chance to wander off and experience the world of Schulz and his critical, yet lively and imaginative thinking.
I also found the process of making our ply cards fascinating as they were then on a app for anyone to see if they were to view the screen but would never know in real life… The digital world has so much to offer if used in a positive way.
Overall, I found my work experience week at HCA 1a arts, productive (there was always something to do!) From this I learned to adapt to different situations and a busy work schedule. Through taking a creative risk by trying everything, not only did I grow in confidence, I too really got a taste of the working world. I developed my communication and listening skills in a new sense as in a professional working environment. Lastly, I would highly recommend HCA 1A arts to do your work experience since the staff are dedicated to making sure your time with them will be great!
