Philanthropy
At 'How To', we like to give something back to the community, so we’ve set ourselves that goal.
Angelica led the first project. Here’s her report:
We took a stand up comedy programme to Southampton. The Lordshill Youth Project was to be our Thursday night hang out for the next 7 weeks. Having delivered the same workshop to a bunch of athletes previously, with great success, we thought a group of young people between the ages of 13-17 would be no problem. What’s that old saying? “Never work with children or animals”? You get the picture…
This whole thing came about after meeting and working with Ian Stickland from Sainsburys, who happened to be on the board of the Lordshill Youth Project. We talked about the comedy programme and decided that this would be something different, something that perhaps these young people hadn’t tried before, something to challenge and inspire them, fill them with confidence.
The first week was a baptism of fire. You can’t always get a large group of young people that age to do what you want them to. With the athletes it was different, that competitive nature kicked in almost straight away as they all wanted to be the best. Young people are afraid of exposing themselves in front of their peers, so it took us a little longer to win their trust. But once we did, it was amazing to watch.
Using improvised games we helped them develop stories and characters, act out scenes, even sing a few songs. They really started to grow in confidence and express themselves.
When I think back to the first week where we could just about get them to say their name whilst throwing a ball, it was like having 15 ‘Am I Bovvered’s’ in the room. Cut to the last week when we put on a show: They all helped set up the room and put on a really professional performance.
Would I do it again? Absolutely! Why? Because there’s nothing more rewarding than seeing a group of young people working together, creating something from scratch, and seeing their faces when they realise that they are good at something.