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Welcome to our latest newsletter which aims to give you a roundup of everything we’ve been doing in EYST. This month we’ve been continuing to support young people to keep learning and active, as schools start to reopen.
Our teams have been putting on online exercise classes, inspirational role model sessions and engaging young people in crucial citizenship debates. While families have been supported to access their welfare entitlements and their rights through our one-to-one support workers.
This month we also held the closing event of our impactful Mentoring Programme, which has supported over 85 Mentees over the last 3 rounds. As we start the Easter holidays, we are now preparing to run our first real life activities with some football sessions for under 18s in Newport, and are also gearing up for the final weeks of our Make Your Mark campaign to get young people voting in the May elections! There is a lot to do, but as always we feel privileged to be able to do what we do.
Wishing you all health and happiness!
Diolch yn fawr
Rocio Cifuentes
EYST CEO
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Supporting Resettled Refugee Families
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It’s hard to believe, but it’s been nearly 5 years since the first families arrived in Wales under the Refugee Resettlement Scheme. These families are now fully settled in Wales and are preparing their applications for Indefinite Leave to Remain. The SRP Team has welcomed Carlos to the team who has made a great start, and the team is preparing to receive another family soon, as COVID-19 restrictions ease. We are also looking forward to a new team member joining us to support our work in Pembrokeshire. Wishing everyone stays safe and well.
Contact Helal@eyst.org.uk for more info.
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BME Youth Invest – expanding to Carmarthenshire, Newport and Wrexham!
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The BME Youth Invest project continues to support young people achieve their potential. This month, EYST Placement Sidney created a moving promotional piece all about Fatima and her placement with Myana Naturals. Another participant, Sahifa, has been shadowing teams at EYST and blogging about her experiences – read more here http://www.eyst.org.uk/post.php?s=2021-03-17-sahifas-shadowing-of-team-vars.
Next month, funded by WCVA via the ESF funded Active Inclusion Programme, we launch 3 new projects which will provide paid work placements for young people aged 18-24 in Swansea, Carmarthenshire, Neath Port Talbot, Newport, Cardiff and Wrexham, and for people aged 25+ living in Swansea, Neath Port Talbot Carmarthenshire.
If you are interested in a paid work placement, or are a community organisation who would like to host such a placement please contact Deborah@eyst.org.uk for more info!
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Volunteering, Asylum, & Refugee Support
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It has been another busy month on Team VARS (Volunteering, Asylum & Refugee Support) We have continued to support our clients through one-to-one support through our asylum support workers, our Crisis project has been busy delivering equipment and food vouchers to vulnerable clients across Swansea and our Homework Club has providing one to one homework help over zoom through our wonderful volunteers across Wales. The end of March will see the Team VARS coming to an end after three wonderful years, two new teams will replace the old one and we look forward to the work of our new Sanctuary Team and or Core Services Team moving forward. A massive thank you to the Staff and Volunteers who have made the team such a success!
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More goals for ...
NEWPORT YOUTH FUTURES
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This March has seen the project really take off with 56 referrals and more incoming. Our team are busy reaching out to new young people and supporting through 1:1’s and small group work. We also held the last of a series of four ‘Becoming a Professional..’ zoom sessions aimed at increasing knowledge, understanding and pathways to careers as Engineers, Lawyers, Accountants and Medics.
We are also working with NYCA on two homework clubs for young people in the region. The project has more exciting projects coming up with the news of government restrictions easing, including friday night football in local parks and venues!
Contact Shahinoor@eyst.org.uk for more information!
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Our team has held 4 positive ‘If you can dream it, you can be it’ positive role model sessions, a weekly 'All Wales Girls Only' Zoom drop-in club that welcomes guest speakers and invites participants to socialise and meet other new young people! Our youth workers have been working 1:1 with individuals and are preparing day trips and short visits to local venues in the coming weeks!
Contact Paul@eyst.org.uk for more information!
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The team have been busy delivering 3 Practitioner Learning Seminars to over 115 professionals in the last month!
We have also been preparing for our Annual conference coming up on Thursday 8th April – with confirmed guest speaker Children’s Commissioner Sally Holland. If you would like to attend please register here: http://bit.ly/BMECYPAnnualConference.
Our team are also offering 3 Half Term activities for children and young people over the Easter break. With Lego challenges, poetry and Easter Egg making it’s sure to be an Egg-citing couple of weeks!!
Contact Fateha@eyst.org.uk for more information!
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Putting the fame into BAME ENGAGEMENT!
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Since the pandemic began, EYST’s BAME Engagement Team has hosted regular online forums on the impact of the pandemic and systematic racism on Black, Asian and ethnic minority people and communities in Wales. We were joined by numerous community members, activists and organisations, totalling over 800 individuals.
On 25th March, nearly a year to the day since the first online forum, we hosted a retrospective to gauge the cumulative impact of the past year on and share ideas for action. We also held a forum on Maternal Health inequalities, and held the closing event for our Routes to Public Life Mentoring Programme, with guest speaker Dawn Butler MP.
All Wales BAME is also proud to host the 'Shaping Our Futures: Clinical Services on Cardiff & the Vale of Glamorgan' on Wednesday 14th April 10 - 11am. Please come on down and have your say about health services in your community!
Lastly, we are thrilled to announce that thanks to Welsh Government and National Lottery Funding, the Mentoring Programme will enter a new phase as a cross-equalities project delivered in partnership with WEN Wales, Stonewall Cymru and Disability Wales – watch this space!
Contact ginger@eyst.org.uk for more information!
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The BAME Helpline Wales is now approaching the start of our 8th month since we launched back in September 2020. The Helpline provides one-to-one support and referrals from client across Wales needing help with a range of issues including employment, education, housing, welfare entitlements, personal safety and health. With a team that speaks seven community languages, the BAME Helpline signposts and refers clients to appropriate services across public and third sector organisations in a culturally- sensitive manner. E-referrals can also be made for clients using the ReferNet platform or through specific online referral forms with organisations with whom we have partnered with to ensure a smooth client transfer.
We have some exciting news to share with you in that we are expanding the way clients can contact the helpline by adding an IM (instant messaging)/Webchat facility. This will be a live chat facility where you will have a call handler available to support.
Watch this space for more updates next month…….
The BAME Helpline Wales is open Monday - Friday 10.30 a.m. -2.30 p.m.
Call: 0300 222 5720 (local rate)
Text: 07537 432416
www.bame.wales
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