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Millennium Award Scheme

The Rathbone Millennium Award Scheme was set up in July 2000 to help disaffected teenagers to carry out projects within their local community. The Millennium Commission donated £1 million over a three-year period to pay for equipment, training and day-to-day expenses so that those who were successful in applying for their awards could make a lasting impact on their community. Project Co-ordinators were employed to help people through the application stages and to provide ongoing support for projects, from planning and budgeting activities to acting as a mentor for those lacking in confidence.

The overall experience was intended to provide young people with an opportunity to take ownership of their personal development whilst helping others. On completing their projects, the award winners are awarded a fellowship by the Millennium Commission and are encouraged to continue their projects – all equipment and resources are donated to the award winners.

The Scheme has been a huge success, providing hundreds of young people with the skills and confidence to go into education and employment, and has served as a model for an alternative means of educating and empowering young people who otherwise would not have had the chance to better themselves.

Ewan Muirhead, Rathbone Millennium Award Scheme Project Co-ordinator

The Outings

The Scheme sponsors approached our Society and asked if we could help two young people, Debbie and John-Paul.

We have a large variety of people, young and old, who come on placements at the Deafblind Unit, but this was just that little bit different.

Debbie and John-Paul were asked what they would like to do to help our service users. Part of the project was to focus on one idea and carry out all the tasks to accomplish this idea.

After some consultation with both Debbie and John-Paul, it was decided that two outings for a meal would be organised. In fact it turned out to be three, one for each group of people. All the organising, transport, booking of restaurants, and so on, had to be done by Debbie and John-Paul.

The work was divided in two. With a lot of help from their new deafblind friends, Debbie, along with John-Paul, set about organising all the practical details of the outings. As manager of the computer department in the Deafblind Unit, I was roped in as well: I helped John-Paul and Debbie write and type up their texts both for this website and for their project.

When all was ready, and it did take some organising, the groups went for their meals.

You can see here that people are getting into the spirit of the thing, singing along and generally enjoying themselves.

Benefits for Debbie and John-Paul

For John-Paul and Debbie it was a chance to come out of their shells. They have had many bad experiences trying to get work, and they were now working with people who actually cared about what they did and about them as people.

Things didn’t end there. After all the outings had finished, there was a press party to publicise just what these two people had done and all the work put in by our own Centre. As both Debbie and John-Paul had problems, a lot of work went into helping them achieve their goal. As well as this, it has given them both confidence to see themselves as really useful and helpful people in our community.

John-Paul has since gained full-time employment at a local supermarket, and he helps one of our service users do their shopping. Debbie still comes to our Centre and helps our service users. Both of them gained a training experience certificate in guiding deafblind people around and learning how to do it safely. Although not the official qualification, this does mean that they can ‘lend a valuable hand’ with our service users.

Benefits for the Deafblind Unit

One of the stipulations was that there should be web pages, with pictures of the outings, with a view to finding sponsors for future events.

Our old computer was making noises as though it had belly-ache, and I wondered just how long it would last. ‘Oh, we’ll provide the society with a new computer,’ Ewan, the Project Co-ordinator, told me, ‘but you will have to work for it.’ Fair enough!

Along with the new computer, our department was given a scanner and printer, with a small digital camera for taking pictures of the outings. Our new equipment (left) is up to date, and we can even run DVDs.
 

On behalf of the Society, I would like to express my thanks to the Rathbone Millennium Award Scheme for all their invaluable help in setting up this project.

Michael Gerwat, a deafblind user of the Centre, and manager of the computer department in the Deafblind Unit