Demi
Young resident Demi spoke to us back in November 2020 about her time at St Basils.
“I feel St Basils alleviated a lot of the initial barriers I’d had that were preventing me pursuing my goals and dreams…. I’m now studying film and animation at University.”
Demi was the first recipient of the Bears bursary grant via Warwickshire County Cricket Club’s charity the Edgbaston Foundation, who have partnered with St Basils to help alleviate some of the barriers to young people accessing education, training and work.
This offer includes financial assistance as well as work experience with the Edgbaston Foundation. Demi explained how this incredible opportunity has changed her life!
“It was a very varied experience and I really learnt a lot. Most of all it really helped me with my social and communications skills… I can’t really express how much gratitude I feel towards the Bears Bursary grant makers and also St Basils. You’ve changed my life for the better!””
Narina
Over the summer a young resident called Narina, living at one of our Warwickshire supported accommodation schemes shared her amazing artwork with us and her thoughts on creativity!
“I prefer the term ‘creative’ over ‘artist’. The reason being that any form of self-expression is something that fascinates me, we are all our own artists in my opinion.”
Krystal
Krystal is a young woman who did fantastically well last summer with her at distance learning courses – our staff were so impressed!
Under normal circumstances we would run all our courses helping young people prepare for the world of work and gain key qualifications face to face – one to one or in small groups, but due to the pandemic last year we had to move all our learning online.
Krystal coped really well with this change and despite having a hearing and speech impediment, Krystal, supported St Basils staff, was able to achieve success and attain several key qualifications including Lifeskills qualifications, Level 1 and Level 2 in Employability and Development Skills and a Level 3 National Diploma in IT.
She wrote a short piece about how she felt St Basils support had helped her.
“Since coming to St Basils in March 2020, I feel I have achieved so much…. Lifeskills and Distance Learning has really changed my Employability expectations and has helped me gain more skills [and] confidence. I believe this will benefit other young people as it has done for me.”