When I first heard I had got the job working as the youth engagement intern at Coram, I was so excited. I wasn’t sure what each day would look like or what I’d be doing; all I knew was that I would help creative projects and engage young people.
My first day started with meeting my manager; we talked and got to know each other, then discussed what I’d be doing that day. First was a big meeting with all the people working on the Voices Through Time project, including people working with Zooniverse, the team in charge of marketing and various other people in charge of the project. It was fascinating hearing about the different parts that everyone plays in making sure the project runs smoothly. In the afternoon, my manager and I met with a young person to discuss the documentary they were working on. We spoke about the current stages the project was at and how I could help with any work.
Over the next month some of the other tasks I did included; sending emails out to other care leavers and local authorities to recruit young people for a spoken word project that we will be running in April, making a welcome pack for those joining us on the spoken word project, creating a document about the different grants available to young people as well as meeting the young people in with my manager and helping to run drop-ins with her. One week I was asked to run a session at the drop-in about the different grants available to young people in care, as a care leaver myself, I already knew quite a few of them. I created a document with all the grants’ links and details so that young people could easily access them and then in the evening presented them in the meeting to the young people.
Each day can be very different; one day, I could be tasked with sending emails and attending meetings. On other days I could be meeting with the young people to help them with their creative projects or take videos for a documentary.
Meeting the young people has been my favourite part of the project so far. I’m hoping as time goes on, I get to work with them more and more. I love hearing about how passionate the young people are when discussing the history of Coram and the Foundling Hospital. They were all so knowledgeable, and it was apparent they all felt passionate about the project. There are many other creative projects I’ll be working on over the coming months, and I’m looking forward to working more with both the team and the young people.