Programme News – CREATE Paisley

Our Autumn programme is in full force now and our young people have been loving every minute of it! From our SPACE work in Linwood and Johnstone to our CREATE cafes, we’re continuing to deliver a jam packed programme online for the young people of Renfrewshire.

With our cafes, we’re continuing to meet every Friday for open mics, quizzes, craft cafes and social evenings. If you want to come along to any of these (as a volunteer or as a young person) we’d love to hear from you! But more specifically, if you know any young people who would like to come along or perform at our Open Mic Night Live on Facebook, please do get in touch! We’re always looking to showcase more young talent from Renfrewshire.

We have also been fortunate enough to deliver some support to a group of young unaccompanied asylum seekers in recent weeks. We were put in touch with the group as a result of our Boredom Box project through our partners at Renfrewshire Council. As with everyone, the pandemic has had massive effects on the lives of these young people. The group, who have found themselves needing to flee their own countries due to extremely perilous conditions, are already extremely isolated both through language barriers but also due to the lack of family support and the pandemic has only increased this isolation.

For most young people the shift to online services has had its problems but for young people like 16 year old Yasser this has been almost impossible with the lack of internet access due to limited finances meaning that they find themselves cut off from the world.

As a result of funding we were able to support these young people through the provision of portable, pre loaded, modems which allowed them to communicate with friends and family and gave them the option to participate in our online programmes to meet and socialise with other young people in Renfrewshire.

‘I am very bored at home. This will help me continue to feel less isolated and adapt to living in Scotland. This will also help me to feel included. This will help me to continue with learning English.’ Yasser, 16

We have since started working on ways we can further help with arts projects, drama, murals and crafts to try and give them much needed respite from their past experiences and their uncertain futures.