Member Article

An amazing summer experience could await your teenager

Over 4,500 North East teenagers have already said yes to a once-in-a-lifetime experience this summer by signing up for National Citizen Service (NCS).

Billed as an ‘experience of a lifetime’, this summer NCS is offering 16 & 17 year olds the unique opportunity of spending time living away from home before creating their own projects that make a lasting impact on their local communities.

Here’s five compelling reasons why your teen should take part this summer:

It’s one massive adventure!

First of all they’ll spend time experiencing the freedom of living away from home in an outdoor environment somewhere like the Lake District, Yorkshire Dales or the Scottish borders.

During this first week they’ll get to take part in a whole spectrum of adrenaline-fueled activities such as rock climbing, abseiling and canoeing.

With their newly-found NCS family, they’ll be developing confidence and leadership skills and achieving things they never thought possible.

They’ll add skills for life

In week two of NCS they’ll be somewhere a little bit closer to home, this time living more independently with their NCS team somewhere in their local area.

Whether it’s budgeting, cooking meals for themselves and their friends or taking part in different workshops, this week is all about building new skills for study, work and life.

Working with organisations and local businesses to understand the community around them, they’ll start to see the world of opportunity that awaits.

Volunteering looks great on their CV - and they’re in charge!

Next up they’ll work with their NCS team to design, plan, organise and deliver their own unique community project.

Using their imagination they’ll make a lasting difference to your local area, which is so much more achievable given the new skills at their disposal.

It’s all recognised

Not only is NCS an opportunity to take on new challenges, meet new people and pick up a lot of skills, our teens get credit for their efforts.

They will pick up a nationally recognised certificate signed by the prime minister, in the North East, they’ll receive a v30 certificate that logs all of the great social action hours they’ve committed to.

NCS is UCAS recognised, so makes for a great addition to any personal statement, and enables young people to talk passionately about their skills and achievements.

The NCS journey doesn’t end once they pick up the certificate; the NCS opportunity hub, a resource packed full of extra volunteering routes, events and workshops, for graduates of the programme, opens up extra doors.

All of this for £50 - or less!

Generous government-backing means that the whole NCS experience will never cost any more than £50, which includes everything; all food, accommodation, transport and activities are covered.

Teenagers in receipt of free school meals are eligible for a bursary and can take part for £10.

Places are now limited across the North East. To check on availability in your locality or to reserve a place for this summer, call 0191 247 4020 or visit NCSNORTHEAST.co.uk

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Jonny Marshall .