Volunteers are a lifeline for organisations such as ourselves and we want to build a team that are dedicated and feel a part of who we are.

The process is meet us, see what we are about. Then if you are interested you need to fill in a CRB form which is then sent off to make sure you are OK to work with children and young people.

Once that clearance has been given you can start to volunteer.

Volunteers may have an area they want to be involved in or may have a skill they feel they can give, there are opportunities to get involved in all areas of our work from the face to face stuff through to behind the scenes administration, or fundraising.

We currently have some great people volunteering with our street teams (still room for more) and with administration and fundraising but don’t let that stop you.

We are seeking people also to help run a weekly youth club, for this we are looking for people who are good with talking to young people, creative, enthusiastic and can commit to being around one evening a week.

If you would like to know how you could be involved in this or any other area of our work do not hesitate to give us a call as we would love to explore how you can help.

Prospex win an award

On Wednesday 16^th July “The Centre for Social Justice” held its 4th Annual CSJ Awards ceremony in London. Prospex, along with six other charities tackling poverty in the UK, won an award and a cheque for £10,000.

The evening was held at the premises of JP Morgan Asset Management in the Grand Hall and was hosted by Esther Rantzen.

Our award was collected by Beef and was presented by Boris Johnson, the Mayor of London. It was an inspirational and emotional evening leaving us feeling that we are part of a bigger picture and also allowing us to do some great networking.

We were entertained on the evening by Flava, a youth dance group who were runners up in TV’s “Britain’s Got Talent,” and we also heard from a young person from the XLP project who gave a chilling performance about a real life school friend who was shot dead in his bed.

Our award money will go towards employing a family support worker which has been made possible by this and another generous donation from The Garfield Weston Foundation. Thess will give us basic funding for an initial year but we will be seeking to make this a long term appointment.

Prospex Street Team

Our detached work has been renamed and will now be known as ‘Prospex Street Team’.

We have spent some time this month evaluating our street work, through which we make our initial contacts with the young people on the local estates. We looked at where and how we work and who we are working with. The results have led us to re-define the boundaries of our work. We have split it into three zones and must now dream about what we would like to do if funding allowed.

The next stage is to make contact with all the youth and community providers in the area, to see how we can work in partnership. Our plan then is to build a regular team of sessional workers to work in all three zones. We are also looking to have Prospex T shirts / jackets so that everyone will know who we are and to raise our visibility.

Prospex Life

We have now completed our second Prospex Life course for Holloway School with a residential on a farm in Cranleigh. We were blessed by good weather for almost all the weekend and it was a real success. The weekend included building fires, rowing, raft building, night hikes, quad biking, off-roading and tractor driving. As well as all this the young people completed many team challenges, engaged in a spot of fishing, came up close and personal to the cows and generally got exhausted.

The residential helps the whole course to slot together and we are looking forward to more in the future, although the winter ones will be challenging!

We are talking with the school about more this year and possibly throughout 2009, so watch this space.

 Prospex Works

We have started a project in partnership with the T.M.O. (Tenants Management Organisation) of Bemerton Estate. This estate is one of the most deprived estates in central London and we have worked for many years with different groups of young people who congregate on the estate. The T.M.O. have decided to engage the young people, through Prospex Works, to do some of their regeneration work. The first project was to paint the railings around a new herb garden that has been created by the residents. This was done on the 2^nd July.

Hopefully this will be just the first of many projects with which we will be involved. Five of our young people have been involved so far in working on the project.

Prospex has seen two young people through an exciting placement as commis chef in the Crown Plaza Hotel. Both young people have gone on to secure interviews with Jamie Oliver’s Fifteen restaurant to become apprentices for 18 months (if successful) as chefs in the Fifteen Restaurant. Their interviews were on 21^st and 25^th of July…… Good luck to them both.

Prospex Families

The advert for this post will be going to press this month so we hope to have someone appointed and starting before the year is out. This is exciting as it has been a dream of ours for a long time and an essential part of our work.

If you are interested or know of anyone who may be interested then please keep checking our website for details.

As we go to press another very generous donation for 10K has been received for our Prospex Families Project.

Prospex Xtra

Thanks to the generous support from a trust we are making plans that will engage young people in learning new skills and enterprise.

In brief we aim to transform half of the centre into work shops and the other half as the drop in. The workshops will aim to offer NVQ level 1 or similar qualifications to young people over the year, with six young people setting up a business at the end with our continued support.

Our first plan is to make flowerboxes and pyography (burning patterns into wood) which will be the development of a project that we have already tested and that has gained a lot of interest. After the first year we would change the workshops to a new skills set so that the young people have a chance to make a go of the new business without us flooding the market.

This project takes us into new territory as an organisation by working to offer recognised qualifications in order to really help young people with their job prospects.

The workshops should also enable us to generate some income through the training and ensure that the building is used to its maximum benefit.

We will keep you updated on the progress of this so watch this space.

PS Do you have a skill you could offer to share in this respect? If so, let us know.

“Who Am I”

This month “Who Am I” features Veronica Nolan (volunteer accountant)

I am an accountant currently working for a venture capital company in Chelsea. I am originally from Tipperary in Ireland and have been in London for 9 years now.
 
I joined Prospex as a volunteer in 2004 because I wanted to do some voluntary work with a children’s/young people’s charity and offering my accounting skills seemed like the perfect thing to do especially when Prospex was desperately looking for a replacement accountant at the time.
 
When I first joined I used to come to the charity once a month to prepare the accounts, but now I do all of the work from home. I come to the charity once every few months for the trustees’ meetings which is great for a catch up on what the charity is currently up to.

The Prospex Team & Young People.

Prospex Drop-In Centre 

Opening Hours - August 2008

Family work is key to what we do at Prospex in many respects the key work stream. We can spend hours working with a young person but at the end of that piece of work they go back to their home situation which can often undo the work we have been doing. So it is essential we work with family’s and give parent/s care givers the tools and support they need to cope with the daily pressures of being a parent.

We are hoping to be able to appoint a family support worker in the not to distant future so watch this space.

29^th June 2008
It was with the deepest sorrow and regret that we received news of Ben’s death and the thoughts of all the staff and young people from Prospex are with his family. Ben was a very likeable young man with his whole life ahead of him. To have that taken away from him and his family in such tragic and unnecessary circumstances left us all stunned. Our thoughts are with Ben’s family and friends at this very sad time.

Dear Supporters,

Exciting times are ahead here at Prospex…. I hope that you have all read the updates over the past few weeks. Here is what has been happening in and around Prospex in June…..

Prospex Detached

We have spent some time this month evaluating our detached work, through which we make our initial contacts with the young people on the local estates. We looked at where and how we work and who we are working with. The results have led us to re-define the boundaries of our work. We have split it into three zones and must now dream about what we would like to do, if funding allowed. The next stage is to make contact with all the youth and community providers in the area to see how we can work in partnership.

Our plan then is to build a regular team of sessional workers to work in all three zones. We are also looking to have Prospex T shirts / jackets so that everyone will know who we are and to raise our visibility.

We have also realised that the word ‘detached’ doesn’t mean a great deal to most people so we are looking for a new name which fits both the format ‘Prospex …….’ and which clearly conveys the type of work and the work stream. Please put your thinking caps on and send your suggestions to info@prospex.org.

Prospex Life

We are just coming to the end of our second Prospex Life personal development course with Holloway School and it has been really encouraging. The eight young people attending have told us that they have found the sessions really helpful. The residential for the course is this coming weekend so we will give a fuller report in the next update.

We have some other groups showing interest in the course and if that firms up we will need to look for staff to help us run them.

Prospex Works

Two of our young people who have had work experience in the Crowne Plazza as Commis Chefs have applied to 15 (the Jamie Oliver initiative) for an apprenticeship . One has already been short listed for the next stage so watch this space.

We have just won some funding for three years that will enable us to set up workshops that will offer accredited qualifications and for six young people to set up a business (with help and training with the skills they have learnt). The plan for the first year is to develop the flowerbox project but also pyography (the art of burning patterns into wood). Watch this space for more news soon.

Prospex Families

We continue to make applications to organisations to fund this extremely important work stream, in order to employ a Family Worker.

We will keep you updated on our progress and hope that some money will roll in……

Prospex Xtra

The Thornhill Bridge project started on the 26^th June. This art project will transform the Thornhill Bridge over the canal using laser cut art into galvanised steel. This is a joint project with Thornhill Bridge Gardeners and we are employing the invaluable skills of artist Rob Pepper.

The young people are working with Rob to create four panels for the bridge.

The first session saw young people learning sketching skills. They drew each other by looking at their books; by not looking at their books; and then by limiting the number of lines they could use. It was a great start with lots of laughter.  The project will use many different media to lead to the end result. All the young people left with homework to take photos of things they don’t normally notice in the area.

Maxine and a group of our older girls met with N1 television which is currently producing a documentary, which is due to air in late August, as part of a feminist season on Channel 4. It intends to explore and examine the developing relationship that women have with their bodies and more specifically with their genitalia.

Other Items

Beef, who is a self confessed blogger, has started a Prospex Blog where he will share what is going on, reflect on our work and current youth issues and pose questions. We would love you to join in the conversation by using the comments.

You can find the blog at http://www.theprospexblog.blogspot.com/

We would like to extend our thanks to Ray Esnard and the DART (Drug Action Response Team) and the ART (Area Response Teams) for helping Prospex with some of its projects over the past few months.

They have assisted us in collecting much needed furniture for our Drop-In Centre. They have also worked with us in donating dumped wooden pallets from around the area for our young people to recycle. Our young people have been able to make some fantastic flowerboxes for the Centre from the pallets and are also looking at selling some.

The DART TEAM has been on hand to offer advice regarding drug litter and what we should do should we come across any. Only the other day, they visited our local church and removed needles from the grounds. They then contacted an outreach team to visit the area to engage people who might need their services.

The Prospex Team and young people would like to thank them for all their hard work over the past few months. This team is truly a credit to Islington Council.

“Who Am I”

This month “Who Am I” features Stephanie Conder (fundraising volunteer)

“In my former life I was a solicitor but I am currently pursuing the career of mother, chief cook and bottle washer. I was a founding Trustee of Prospex as well as a volunteer dealing at that time with its finances and fundraising. After a break to bring up the children I am now back at Prospex as volunteer fundraiser and am loving it!

I now live in Hammersmith, in West London, so come into Prospex once a week and then do the rest of the work at home in the week.

I have a husband, Jon, and two children, Christopher aged 15 and Rachel aged 12. The children have grown up with Prospex in the background and all the family are highly supportive of its work.

Lastly and very importantly we would to thank Matt Calvert. Matt was the founder and originator of Prospex and its vision for helping young people. It was his leadership which created and delivered Prospex to the point where we find ourselves today. Many, many young people owe a huge debt of gratitude to Matt who has enabled them to turn their lives around. It is through his legacy here that you can see the extraordinary effect and influence that can be achieved by an uncompromising commitment to a life cause.

We wish Matt great success in his new venture and look forward to a continuing interest from him as we move into a new chapter.

The Prospex Team & Young People.

Prospex Drop-In Centre

Opening Hours - July 2008