A visit to Oxford Youth Enterprise
I met with Nafeesa Khan in the grounds of the Rose Hill Community Centre. She was under a pop-up gazebo in –3 temperatures and freezing fog with the warming aroma of steaming hot chocolate bubbling away on her camping stove. Nafeesa and her dedicated team offer their time and big hearts to build trusted relationships with young people in the area and prioritise working with them outdoors.
One of the team is a student manager at TOA. The initiative is called ‘One Step Forward’ with a strapline of ‘Name It’. The team are available and accessible offering a safe space for young people, with an outdoor focus – meeting kids where they are in their meeting places, building relationships, trust, a space to share their concerns and hopes, to ‘name these’, talk about whatever they need to.
They also lead outdoor holiday clubs at Willowbrook farm with no mobiles or social media. Nafeesa is passionate about the environment and wants to help them reconnect with nature, and has done this for 15 years. Creative activities are always there on the table, under the gazebo, for kids to engage with.
Nafeesa shares her thoughts
“In the field of youth and community work, funding and receipt of successful grants are often far and few between, so having the financial support for the One Step Forward detached project has been absolutely amazing and enabled us to tackle many areas and needs over the past 4 months.
Having said that, there is another aspect to the support we have received from yourselves, which is quite unique, not often given as part of a ‘funding / grant package’.
We have continuously been offered links by yourselves to other professionals and community groups that are delivering work in the areas; opportunities to meet with your team to share ideas, progress, reflections, and discuss future plans.
It really has been an enlightening experience and adds a sense of empowerment to the process.”
This is a provision that really reaches the spot for the kids because Nafeesa and the team are so dedicated and trusted by the young people they are seeking to serve.
Rachel Woods
Community Capacity Builder, Community First Oxfordshire
Well Together is being delivered in partnership by OCVA and Community First Oxfordshire and has been funded by the NHS Buckinghamshire, Oxfordshire, and Berkshire West Integrated Care Board (NHS BOB ICB).