Young people from Southwick Neighbourhood Youth Project recently took part in our Sunderland Youth Action Unlocked, a youth-led social action programme that brings young people together to create projects focused on the issues that matter most to them and their communities.

As part of the first Sunderland Youth Action Unlocked event, young people from across the city came together to design projects that could create a positive change in their local areas.

For the Southwick group, their project focused on creating a cleaner, more welcoming community space while also bringing local families and organisations together through a fun community event.

Their idea combined a colour run, park clean-up, obstacle course, and a family fun day complete with a bouncy castle, free food and snacks, and information stalls from local organisations including Active Sunderland and Together for Children.

The group said that at the heart of the project was one clear goal: “to bring the community together.”

The young people also enjoyed being involved in every stage of planning the event. One member shared, “I liked planning everything because we had lots of ideas,” while another reflected that “it brought us all together.”

Throughout the project, the group developed important skills including communication, teamwork and confidence. They described learning how to “talk in front of people and express our ideas.” The project also helped create opportunities for the group to spend more time together and strengthen their teamwork. One young person said that they developed skills in “teamwork and working together.”

Like many youth-led projects, there were challenges along the way. Organising parts of the event meant stepping outside of their comfort zones with the group explaining that they had to talk to members of the community to see what they would like at the event. The group also shared that managing the project budget was also difficult.

Despite these challenges, the group felt proud of what they had achieved together and the project saw a huge boost in confidence for the group. Previously, they had attempted to organise an event that never made it to the last stage, but this time they had done it! Their facilitator explained just how significant this progress has been: “They just didn’t feel confident enough but this time around they feel better.”

Overall, the group hoped that the project would shine a light on local youth opportunities and encourage more young people to get involved: “so once it’s done hopefully it can bring awareness of youth clubs and what we do because then people might want to come and join in our stuff as well.”

With support from local organisations and families coming together through the event, the project became exactly what the group hoped it would be – a positive day for the community, created by young people.

Looking back on their experience, the group’s advice to other young people was “try your best” and “work together.”