Week 1: Tuesday 25th July 2017

The Youth Social Action Team was split into two groups and the day began with an icebreaker. This helped us find out more about the new volunteers and a bit too much about the existing volunteers! After getting to know each other better, the teams brainstormed different campaign ideas. Ideas ranged from; mental health awareness, acid attacks, helping people realise their full potential and littering.
 
Each group then had to pick their ‘top’ ideas and present why they chose them. After much debate and teamwork, the top ideas were anti-bullying, politics/life-skills and mental health/cultural integration. Team A chose anti-bulling because it made citizens feel unsafe in the community and often leads to depression. Team B chose politics and life-skills because there is a lack of community awareness on political issues and access to build on their life-skills. Team B also chose mental health and cultural integration as many people who do not speak English as their first language may find it difficult to do everyday tasks resulting in anxiety.
 
The groups then had to choose their final ideas (see below), expand on how they would put it into action and create a slogan. Team A’s anti-bullying campaign had the slogan “time to rise”. It aimed to encourage youths to speak out if they are being bullied by contacting the team via phone, email or directly. They would encourage youths to reach out by speaking in primary and secondary schools, designing a website, creating safe communication between the team and youths and running fun events with the community.
 
Team B’s final idea was politics and courses. Their slogan was “live, love and learn how to use your voice”. Their campaign targets 10 - 20 year olds and encourages active citizenship. Provisional session ideas included survival skills, debate night, suggestion box and issues of societal importance.
 
The Youth Social Action Team took a majority vote to decide which idea would be more viable. Nadia Patel counted the votes and announced that the politics and courses campaign had won. Both campaigns contained amazing ideas and hopefully the future courses can incorporate anti-bullying.

Be inspired! Part 3/5 in our series of Big Local Community Heroes. For our third week, we interview local resident Tony Durham, making a real difference in our community. Tony has been involved with our Big Local intergenerational Walking Football project funded by Sport England. This interview was filmed part of our new NHS Falls Prevention Film coming out later this summer.

Interviewed by Serena Lola.

Filmed and edited by our talented young participants involved with our MADE in HESTON WEST Film-Making Project with MADE (Make A Difference Entertainment).

On Sunday's MADE in HESTON WEST youth film-making session, NCS The Challenge were challenged to create two short films about health and sport alongside our young crew.
The two ideas generated were: Women in Sport and Mental Health. Working together with NCS The Challenge was a great opportunity for our young people to learn but also a chance to shine.

Sharan, 13, said: "It was really fun day and it was great working with the NCS crew. I learned loads, it was a fantastic experience. I also taught them a few things on how to use the camera, so I'm happy."

We would like to thanks both QPR Trust and NCS The Challenge for their continued support for our community.

Tuesday 18th July 2017: Our Heston West Big Local & Cranford Community College Traveller’s BBQ was a huge success with over 200 local residents and groups attending. The weather was spectacular reaching highs of 24 degrees. There was a wide range of fun activities for everyone to get involved in, from; face painting, arts and crafts, multi-sports and a live classical Indian Ghungroo dance performance.

We were also treated to cupcakes and candyfloss! It was great to see the event unite so many members of our community. The Big Local Youth Action Team - an army of 15 dedicated volunteers - was hard at work helping run all the activities while the Cranford staff and Big Local parent volunteers were on the BBQ serving our community members. The event was a great achievement in helping unite the community and helped reach the Big Local mission to offer opportunities, create happier, and healthier lives for everyone.

We would like to thank our Big Local committee members, staff at Cranford Community College (special thanks to Alan Fraser and Cara Canon), Haroon Lukka our fantastic photographer, Big Local Youth Action Team, Neesha Radia (for her lovely dance performance), Anita at Certitude, Samira and Steph at Hounslow Council, Jerrell at QPR Trust, Jackie About Faces and all our community volunteers, residents and supporters who made the event simply amazing!

On Saturday, we were involved with Berkeley Primary School's Summer Fair (attended by 250+ local people) supporting with the BBQ (thanks to our amazing parent volunteers), Face Painting (by our talented young volunteers), engaging with our community members - asking residents to tell us what they think about our local health services! NCS The Challenge brought an army of 24 young people to help with our outdoor drama games workshop and multi-sports!

On Sunday, the same group of 24 young people from NCS The Challenge joined us at our MADE in HESTON WEST Film-making session and also helped us deliver and promote our summer brochures on the Redwood Estate and Harlech Gardens. Overall we delivered around 500 flyers! Towards the end of the weekend we gathered and watched some amazing short films created by both our participants and the NCS young people to cap off a positive and productive weekend making a real difference to our Big Local community.

Big thanks to all our volunteers, NCS The Challenge, Berkeley Primary School and Make A Difference Entertainment.

Be inspired! Part 2/5 in our series of Big Local Community Heroes. For our second week we interview Sharnjeet Bhalla, a local action woman from Sunshine of Hounslow making a real difference in our local community through various projects such as: Yoga, Sewing and Knitting and Disability Allotment. This interview was filmed part of our new NHS Falls Prevention Film coming out later this summer.

Interviewed by Anjali Parmar and Sharan Kaur.

Filmed and edited by our talented young participants involved with our MADE in HESTON WEST Film-Making Project with MADE (Make A Difference Entertainment).

Be inspired! Part 1/5 in our series of Big Local Community Heroes. For our first week, we interview local resident Terry Noad, a former athletics coach making a real difference in our community. Terry has been involved with our recent Healthy Cooking and Walking Football activities. This interview was filmed part of our new NHS Falls Prevention Film coming out later this summer.

Interviewed by Serena Lola and edited by our young volunteers at MADE in HESTON WEST.

Heston West Big Local visited the University of Birmingham on Saturday 1st July 2017 for the Local Trust Film Festival. After a 3 hour journey we gatecrashed the morning workshops - 'How does Big Local negotiate and bring about change?' and 'How does Big Local manage expectations?' The workshops were an opportunity for us to learn from other areas and also give us an invaluable insight how Big Local works for difference areas.

We also had the opportunity to share our story, especially the fantastic and inspiring work from our Youth Action Team. We had 14 young people attend the trip and they were all given a platform to tell their story and how they got involved with community work. Our young people were also interviewed by Local Trust which was a great testament to the Heston West project.

In the afternoon we visited two more workshops - 'Creation of community spaces
- turning local land into parks and a community hub' and 'Involving children and teenagers in Big Local areas.' Ideas flourished, inspiration grew and eyes opened to the possibility of transforming our area visually, physically and mentally. We finished the day enjoying ice cream and networking with other areas before we boarded the coach back to Heston.

Overall the day was enjoyable, a great learning experience - especially for our newest committee members and parents and a day to feel immensely proud of our young superstar volunteers!
Big thanks to everyone who attended and made us feel welcome and also a massive thanks to Local Trust and the University of Birmingham.

Go team HESTON WEST!