Terrific teens explode negative stereotypes in Ilminster (From This is The West Country)

Terrific teens explode negative stereotypes in Ilminster

8:00am Saturday 8th September 2012 in News By Jamie Brooks

A GROUP of teenagers in Ilminster have been volunteering this summer helping to shatter stereotypes of young people being ‘drunken disasters’ and ‘terrible teens’.

The former Wadham Community School students, aged from 16 to 17, have been taking part in the Somerset Rural Youth Project, doing something positive for the community.

Lily Blows, together with Millie Calvert, Carmel Green, Chloe Hill, Jasmine Clark, Harriett ’O Grady and Jack Jones, have been volunteering in the elderly residential home at Vaughan Lee House – as they also try to break perceptions young people have of the old.

The Somerset Rural Youth Project is a registered charity which offers a chance for young people to get away on a residential and to create a social action project.

While the project has come to an end now the group are hoping to continue volunteering in future at Vaughan Lee House.

Lily, from Shepton Beauchamp, said: “We have finished now but they have said we can come back at half-term and over Christmas – and we wanted to do a Christmas event for the residents.”

Earlier in the summer Lily and her group stayed in Wales where they were jumping off 40 foot cliffs and climbing up waterfalls which soon inspired them to work as a team.

Lily added: “All of us really enjoyed it, especially the week in Wales. When you finish school in Year 11 everybody is not sure what to do. We’d like to encourage other people to do it as well – the project we did was so good.”

The youngsters came up with the idea to volunteer in the elderly residential home, and decided on a team name – ‘Forever Young’.

They also made videos of their work, which they hope to share with schools – in an attempt to encourage the years below them to take on a volunteering project.