the brierley hill project blog

Thursday the 11th December saw the Brierley Hill Project hit the streets and flats with vouchers. These were not any ordinary vouchers, when produced at the South Street Cafe on Monday 15th December, they enabled the holder of the vouchers to receive a FREE Meal!

As you can imagine, this brought round alot of people. There were over 40 people there, who each received a free meal, from all different ages and background, to name just a few,
There were:
• Families
• People on their own
• Homeless people
• Drug addicts/Ex-users
• Recently released convicts
• Pensioners

As you can probably tell, this lead for some very interesting and encouraging conversations, where people could relate and just talk to someone else. Everyone who came voiced their opinions and said how happy they were with what they had been given.

The people who came and used this opportunity were informed of the other activities that take place here at the Brierley Hill Project and those that are relevant to them. Some actually managed to use some of these resources and we started to help two homeless people get accommodation (a process of which, I believe, how recently been finished!)

Some people who are regular users of the Project also helped to clear up after it had finished, which was a great and much needed help.

Of course this would not have been a success without the help of many contributors, who provided advertising amongst other things for us, some of which are:
• Hawbush Primary School
• Nisa Shop
• Emporium gym
• Hair dressers

To name just a few. So a big Thank You to all those that were involved in this day at any level, you were all a great help and made this run smoothly and successfully.

The bhp sports week finished on Friday 31st October with different games of football and basketball.
The original plan was to go over the field but due to weather this was not possible, so it took place
on the muga again, which worked well.

On Tuesday 28th October we were supposed to be playing basketball, but the weather did not permit us to, however, we still saw around 20 young people in the youth provision, which is still very encouraging!

Overall the week was a success and went well, with us seeing over 25 different young people throughout the week
dispite the weather.

Today (Monday 27th) marked the start of the bhp Sports Week. The Sports Week consists of 3 days of activities/sports and is aimed at young people, aged 12-18, from around the local area.
The week will include;
Football on Monday (27th October)
Basketball on Tuesday (28th October)
& a fun day on the field on Friday (31st October)

We kicked off with football today, seeing 15 young people playing football, or on the park.
This was an encouraging start to what we hope will be a good week.
We hope that more young people will come throughout the other activities and that this week will prove to be a success

Click the link below to download Octobers newsletter

http://www.brierleyhillproject.org.uk/blog/wp-content/uploads/2008/10/october08_newsletter.pdf

A homeless, drug using, no family, no job, hope was none existant. He was found in a bush, nearby the Brierley Hill Project and was not in full health. We took him to the hospital in which he spent 2 weeks recovering from various problems. Now, he’s totally turned his life around - for the rest of this amazing story, please read the next ‘BHP Newsletter’.

september08_newsletter_x.pdf

Click here to download our latest newsletter!

Here are a selectionof pictures from Mission ‘08, enjoy! (Photos courtesy of Simon Ashby)

From Monday 25th til Saturday 30th August will be our ‘Mission 2008′ week. For those who don’t know what ‘Mission 2008′ is, we’ll give you a small run-down. 45 young people will come together and devote their time, effort and money to help the local surrounding community.

These 45 people will also be sleeping here for 5 nights on the hard floor, eating 3 meals per day and showering at the ‘Crystal Leisure Centre’.

The activities for the week will include helping out around the Brierley Hill Project, partaking in ‘Social Action’ which involves tidying up gardens, doing simple DIY, many other similiar tasks and it all leads into a big event happening on Lawyers Field (down by the graveyard) which is a event for the community on Saturday which kicks off at 1:30pm til 4pm

An alternative education programme idea is currently being discussed within the management team. We currently have 1 pupil from a local Secondary School who works at the BHP one day per week as part of his education. This could potentially become a great part of the BHP vision.