Last week I had the absolute pleasure of visiting 16 and 17 years olds from Blue School, Kings of Wessex, St Dunstans, Crispins and Whitstone whilst they were doing their National Citizen Service. NCS lasts for four weeks; starting with an outdoor pursuits ‘Challenge’ week, then a week of learning life skills like budgeting, cooking or writing CVs, and then two weeks of organising events in the community to raise money for their chosen charity.
This group were on their Challenge Week down at Wimbleball Lake on Exmoor. They had camped through some pretty heavy rain earlier in the week, there was no phone signal and iPhone batteries had long expired. They were loving it.
An instructor – who had been on NCS herself last year – told me that her previous group had organised a barn dance in Priddy and a football tournament in Street as their fundraising activities. They’d worked tirelessly and selflessly to raise a seriously impressive amount of money for charity.
NCS brings young people of all backgrounds together to learn about themselves and their community. For some it will just be four fun weeks that looks good on a university application form. But for others it is a truly transformative experience.
I was so impressed by all I saw. The Somerset Rural Youth Project run a great programme and the facilities at Wimbleball are amazing. But more impressive still was the camaraderie and joie de vivre of the young people from all over Somerset who were taking part. If you know a 15 year old, you’d be doing them a huge favour by encouraging them to sign up for next year.