We might be apart at the moment, but that hasn’t stopped our brilliant team of volunteers stepping up and joining in with our online apArt Club programme. From helping make junk models to giving ideas for marble runs, our brilliant creative volunteers have helped to make lockdown a fun and social place for lots of local children and young people.
We want to celebrate and say a big thank you to everyone, so here are some of the children we work with saying a big thank you.
Meet Leo
Leo is one of our volunteers, we caught up with him to find out more about what he’s been up to both in real life and through online sessions, and why he volunteers for HCA.
What volunteering have you been doing with HCA over the past few months?
I help with the creative communication group, I’ve done so many different activities with the groups, we focus on mostly arts and crafts, but we did a very fun (and loud) drama session, a session that really sticks out in my mind is Lego animation. I also helped chaperone on my first trip with a group of young people most of which I didn’t know.
What challenges have there been?
The group I help with is an SEN group so we get lots of challenges, but that’s to be expected. The studio got repainted and it took me about 4 weeks to be okay with it.
What do you enjoy about volunteering with HCA?
It’s ridiculously fun, the young people always make the most off the wall unexpected art. I’ve been at HCA for a very long time and it’s lovely to see a young person enjoy and succeed at an active they once struggled with. The level of work ethic and attitude of the young people bring to arts projects, two young people were making a Lego animation together and said “all the characters can’t be boys” as they where concerned about the diversity in their animation.
Tell me 3 things you have learnt whilst volunteering during COVID-19?
- That the young people are much more digitally able than me, I’m only 22 and the 7 year olds can work zoom better than me.
- Sessions can be overwhelming even when they are online, most people make think it would be easier for autistic people but 12+ on one screen can be hard.
- It can be harder to support the young people, you can explain the activities but you can help them with tasks, the same goes for behaviour we can tell the kid who are in the same room to stop arguing but we can’t sit them on opposite ends of the table like would would do at the studio.
If you would like to find out more about volunteering with our arts projects, or would like information on how to get involved with our current ApArt Programme please email 1aarts@holborncommunity.co.uk or call 0207 405 2370 (option 2)
