This week we took ten girls from my Year 7 Girls Club on a 3-day trip to a residential centre in the middle of the Ashdown Forest in East Sussex. This was a very different experience to taking away 15-17 year old boys as we did in May – buying teddies in the service station, regularly making their beds and sweeping their dorm floors and asking permission to have showers!!! The one similarity they did unfortunately have was staying up almost the entire first night sustained by an extensive range of sugary products.

But this didn’t stop their enthusiasm though. The girls had a brilliant time and really threw themselves into all the activities – archery, climbing, tunnelling, high ropes, canoeing, obstacle course, team challenges and night walks in the forest. They really pushed themselves outside their comfort zones and discovered new skills and interests – one girl loved tunnelling so much we nearly lost her down every hole we walked past!!

It was a tiring but fun few days and a great opportunity to get to know and understand the girls better. We had some exciting chats about future projects they want to do so I’m really looking forward to working with them more in September.

As the culmination of a Spoken Word project we’ve been doing (see previous blogs…), we had a day shooting a short film last Saturday. The idea was to give the young people an opportunity to perform and record their work and also to give them space to voice their experiences of being a young person in Tower Hamlets. We worked with a team of professional film-makers so had a full set-up of lights and sound equipment and even a clapper board and make-up artist which made the day really exciting (had to do a bit of persuading with the make-up!!).

Shane, the spoken word artist, worked with the guys first on their material on the set. It was amazing to see a group of guys who previously didn’t all know each other and who all had very different stories, share so openly about their pasts and how these experiences had shaped them, their values and views. The four guys were then filmed one by one reciting their work to camera.

They all engaged brilliantly for the 6 hours that we were there, responding to a variety of directions and watching and encouraging each other in between. The crew said they were really impressed with the groups’ professionalism and got some great material so the result should be really good.

The video will be launched online in a few weeks time so watch this space…..

Last night the Teviot Centre in Poplar was full to the brim if not overflowing with creativity (that is the link with the misplaced photo!). We had 4 visiting poets performing to the young people instead of the normal club. We also invited other youth centres to come and visit, Salmon youth centre attended and they bought some young people and a couple of the young people got up  and performed.

It was a great night the young people, said that they really enjoyed it, although they did say that some of it they missed or when over their head. I always love to have new people come and visit the young people, it was great to see young people challenged by what the poets had to say and by them and their personalities.

One of the poets lost his leg in an accident and it was great to see a stunned silence fall as he read his poet about the pain he went through when and as he had it amputated . In my experience aspirations are built on and developed when we meet new people are are inspired, last night was a time like this for the young people on the Teviot Estate.

So the blog this week is a day late, this is because this week we were on a residential trip. We went for 3 days and 2 nights to Calshot an activities centre on the south coast with a bunch of boys aged 13 – 19. It was a challenging and tiring time, we did lots of activities including sailing, kayaking, snowboarding, climbing and velodrome cycling to name but a few!

It was a tiring experience I think I managed 10 hours sleep over the course of the residential, and I got more than more than the young people! It was great to see all the young people doing the activities, they all got a recorded outcome – this is youth work terminology for measuring a change in a young person, this can be as wide ranging as gaining a new skill to growing in confidence. Each young person also got an AQA an accredited outcome.

For me these are not as important, in fact I’d say (perhaps controversially) not even really youth work. Some of the other elements of the residential, the conversations that I had with the young people in between activities or in the evenings were the real nuggets. These moments for me are youth work. These are the points when the building relationship with young people enables us to challenge, support and help them think about themselves and the environment in which they find themselves. This isn’t measured or recorded as such, but is the reason I do the work I do.

The Grand Finale to our the first installment of  Cooking Club, was a trip to a Restaurant. We took all five boys, aged 11 – 13 it was a brilliant experience on a number levels. One to get out of the East End, some having never been to a Restaurant let alone going to West London. The meal was enjoyed by all they had a main course and a dessert, it was great to see them poring over the menu, all watching what each other is having and who is making the best decision. After what seemed like ages our food was brought over to us, all the boys were moaning about how hungry they were by this stage. Two of the young people really hated there main meals and the staff in the Restaurant were really helpful swapping the boys meals for something else.

We then had to order desserts, all the boys by this point had all ready had an Adult main course and 2 smoothies, and they ordered a dessert each. As the desserts arrived all i could hear was my mothers voice,  ’your eyes are bigger than your stomach’, but each managed to finish their desserts. One looked in physical pain as he swallowed his last spoonful of gaudy looking ice cream fountain thingy. We decided a short walk all the river would be in order, as vomiting in an open space was preferable to being trapped underground on the DLR.

Altogether it was a fun trip and a new experience for the young people.

On Monday we took a group of young people to a Spoken Word event at the Salmon Centre. It was a really inspiring time for both the workers and the young people. There were 3 artists performing, each inspiring in their own way as they performed in their individual styles. One of the artists, a 15 year old boy, spoke with such passion and elegance and his words were ordered and delivered in such a way as to leave the listener intrigued, baffled, questioning and impressed all at once! On the bus journey home it was great to hear the young people talk of there experiences, saying ‘that has inspired me to get writing again’ and ‘ that was amazing’. For those that are still a little confused as to what spoken word is there is a video below from and artist that also performed on Monday. I found this clip really inspiring and helps me put in to words what i think we face at the Canaan Project on a daily basis.

Spoken word gig at

The Canaan Project has been recently been successful in getting money for trips including:

2 x Residential Trips (one male, one female)

3 x Cooking Club Trips – a meal at a nice restaurant for our Cooking Groups

2 x Activity Day Trips

This is really exciting and a great opportunity for the young people that we work with to gain new experiences and new learning. Last year the residential was a real success. Young people really enjoyed their time away and some said they felt they had grown in confidence and self-esteem because of the experiences had on the residential.

We have started a Cooking Club in which we work with a small group of young people each term on a Monday afternoon.

Through cooking a series of dishes from around the world the young people are learning about new foods, developing a range of food preparation skills and gaining knowledge about the nutritional content of different foods and what makes a balanced diet. It has been great to see the current group of 5 boys, gain new skills and knowledge whilst having a great time and a good dinner. One of the boys even said he might be interested in becoming a chef!

They are going to be cooking a meal for all the volunteers in the next couple of weeks to finish off their sessions at which they will be presented with a food preparation qualification.

Through a partnership between Langdon Park School, Poplar HARCA and Poplar Boys and Girls Club a bid was put in to a government initiative called Myplace who fund ‘world-class’ youth centres.  The bid was successful and a £6 million youth centre is now scheduled to built on the Teviot Estate on the site of Langdon Park School, opposite Langdon Park DLR station (see picture).

The Canaan Project played a key role in carrying out consultation with young people for the original bid and will now continue in this capacity throughout the design stage of the project.