Yes Media Project

The YES Project supports young people living in Leicester and Leicestershire aged 15-24 who currently aren’t in any type of paid work, training or education – facing barriers such as serious mental health illness, low self-esteem, disabilities, being in care, and language and cultural barriers.

The YES team is a partnership of seven youth organisations and charities, offering one-to-one support to every participant on the Project. In December 2019, we were successful in becoming a service delivery partner for the YES Project, with the latter joint funded by The National Lottery Community Fund and the European Social Fund, delivered and managed by Voluntary Action LeicesterShire.

The support offered by the YES Project is adapted to meet the participants’ individual needs. Across the partnership, we offer the following to young people furthest away from the labour market to enable them to find work, move into a job search or further education.

As part of this consortia, we are offering the YES Media Project which is specific knowledge and training around using different forms of media and practical learning to improve chances of employment.

YES Media Project helps participants through focused learning in all basic forms of Multimedia, including:

• Graphic Design
• Video Editing
• Online Marketing
• Photography
• Communication
• Music making, Instruments and Audio Interfaces
• Beginners guide for virtual working using different programmes and live streaming

Since our delivery of YES Media Project, we have successfully recruited 13 NEET participants to fully complete the 5-week course and this is a great achievement, as all the participants we recruited were furthest away from the labour market and suffered from hidden health conditions.

In total, we have engaged with over 36 young people who are economically inactive and provided support through our outreach hours, as well as offering support via virtual platforms. Our Information, Advice and Guidance sessions took place every Wednesday between 2.30pm and 5.30pm. These mentoring sessions were open to young people aged 15 to 24 to help with making informed choices around education, training, and employment. Our experienced youth workers offered a range of services within an informal environment and offered the following services:

• Build confidence and improve self-esteem (Group work, Ice Breakers)
• Drafting CV’s, completing job applications
• Support with relevant training and identifying voluntary placements
• Improve confidence, communication and writing skills
• Create bespoke action plans, goal setting and identify training needs
• Training on use of social media and job vacancy sites to enhance digital engagement.
• Undertake role plays, mock interviews, and promote peer learning.
• Refer and signpost to service delivery partners to increase participation and chances of employment.

YES, Participant Case study

To understand how this project has made a difference to young people, we asked a young person to comment on their experiences when accessing our YES Media Programme.

Person H had this to say………

I am currently in the third week of the Yes Media Project and so far, I have been involved with developing a story board with others that have joined the project more recently and we have worked on Directing, Filming and Acting to produce a short video that we are planning to edit and showcase to other young people.

This is helping me learn new skills and has given me the knowledge around the behind-the-scenes work involved in creating movie scenes and directing films. Our facilitator is super cool and full of energy and enthusiasm, and he motivates me and other to explore our skills and passion.

This project is helping me get into a routine, especially following the coronavirus lockdown. I was starting to feel quite anxious and depressed from being indoors all the time and lacking any sort of purpose. By giving a purpose to achieve, the project has allowed me to start learning new skills and connections that will hopefully help me become more employable in a city that I had just moved to.

The biggest difference that I have noticed is that I am so much more comfortable than before starting the project and I think that’s because of the friendships that I have made during the time at the studios and the mentoring that I have been given has provided me with the support to seek employment and the development of my skills and abilities.

I would recommend this programme to anyone that is unemployed and lacks the confidence to attend mainstream education, as they really do help and support you, and you should try it even if they’re unsure, as you would most likely gain skills that you would’ve never thought you’d learn from a project like this.