What have we achieved in 2019?
We are about to start a new decade but we wanted to take a look into our achievements during 2019. This year has marked the 10th anniversary of our charity, a very important milestone and a perfect excuse to celebrate, not just our achievements, but also our young people’s.
Inflata Nation Soft Play Inflatable Park Glasgow
We started the year going to Infla Nation with the winners of the Dance Competition 2018 to enjoy an afternoon jumping around and doing tricks.
The Residentials
Achieve more Scotland carried out two residentials, one of which was our largest residential yet, involving 31 young people. They were given the opportunity to take part in outward bound activities such as ; abseiling , hill walking , canoeing , team building activities and camping.
You can read more about their experience in this post: https://aandm.org.uk/2019/02/25/a-week-to-remember/
International Women’s Day – Balance For Better
In aid of International Women’s Day 2019 we decided that we would let our young people speak up about what this year’s theme, Balance For Better means to them. Today you will see some pictures from some of the children and young people who use our services having their say on the gender balance they want to see for a better world.
Launch of our new Podcast
In 2019 we felt the need to open a new channel where people from all kinds of backgrounds could come together and share their views on difficult topics. Social media doesn’t give enough space or time for people to have a deep conversation and because of that, podcast was the format chosen. It has been an interesting experience and we hope to continue bringing many interesting topics in the Podcasts to come in 2020
You can check them all here
Holiday Activities
We hosted Holiday Camps in February, Easter, Summer and October with over 16,000 attendances engaging in sports, arts and crafts and games. During the Camps, we also provided a bus service to multiple areas, breakfast and lunch. These have been our largest Holiday Camps to this day and we are aiming to expand the activities to more areas in 2020. Keep an eye on our social media channels to know more.
At Summer Camp we delighted to welcome Maree Todd and show her our work during the Holidays as well as sharing our work module. She had a fantastic time getting to know some of our young people.
Ross starts cycling from China to Scotland
Ross reached out a few months before his adventure started to let us know about this amazing project that he had in mind. He is passionate about sports and understand the importance of eliminating the barriers that keep young people from having an active life. Because of that, he decided to embark in a 8 month journey cycling from Shanghai to Glasgow, the city where he was born.
He is right now heading towards Europe and still raising funds to support our activities. You can know more about his story here: https://bit.ly/2rglj8c
While I love the students that I have been teaching sports to for the past five years, it’s no question that their lives and the opportunities they have to access sport and physical activity could not be further from the situation Andy was describing back in Glasgow. It was at this point that I decided to do whatever I can to help contribute to the good work being carried out by Achieve More! Scotland.
Ross Mckechnie
Team Awards
We wanted to take time to celebrate our team, our volunteers and all the young people that came from our activities and became part of the team to support children and young people in the communities that we work with. 80% of our staff were previous participants!
Hosted International Volunteers
We had 25 volunteers that came from different countries to support our Holiday Camps for a month. They had the best time discovering Scotland as well as playing with the kids and gaining skills on sports delivery. Many of them told us that after this experience, they had the intention to continue volunteering.
One of them shared their experience with us in a blog post. You can read it here : https://aandm.org.uk/2019/10/03/an-incredible/
International experiences
Thanks to our international partners and the support of the European Union funding some of our participants went to different countries to volunteer in local community projects with kids and young people. International volunteering is a life changing experience that allow our young people to get out of their comfort zone and gain valuable skills as well as confidence.
Zip Slide across the Clyde
This is probably one of the most fun activities of the year for adults. We encourage everyone to take part at least once, it is a very good experience to have in your pocket and all the funds raised by the participants go to support what we do.
Annual Ball
This year’s Annual Ball was an opportunity to celebrate the 10 years of the charity and the multiple achievements that we have conquered as a team. Please, watch the video bellow to know more about our journey and the journey of some of our team members and participants.
Pancake Day
Our participants at Milton had a fantastic evening celebrating Pancake Day with all their friends at the class.
The Kiltwalk – Glasgow and Dundee
Over 100 participants took part this year at The Kiltwalk to support Achieve More! Scotland
Both days were absolutely brilliant and it was incredible to see so many bright t-shirts amongst the multitude of walkers on the day.
Dance Competition
This year’s Dance Competition was the biggest we have hosted so far with teams from all across Glasgow, 400 kids and their parents. A really fun day with tons of prizes, medals and outstanding performances. One of our favourite moments was the Parents Dance Off. Take a look!
Black History Month
Every year we celebrate Black History Month to highlight the importance of remembering our history and raise awareness of some of the most important figures across different fields that has been forgotten because the colour of their skin.
Not only that, in 2019 we gave the chance to some of our young people to share their thoughts on Black History Month and why we should celebrate it.
Online Dance Competition – Violence Against Women
As you may have seen over all our social media platforms, the Online Dance Competition explored difficult topics and it was funded by Glasgow City Council under their Violence Against Women fund. This kind of projects show the importance of addressing important issues in a creative context with guidance and the right support. If you want, you can watch all the dances that the different teams created in our Youtube channel.
Volunteering
We have made a point over the year to increase the amount of opportunities for our volunteers. We have offered training opportunities, work experiences and also volunteering days. Many young people have reached out and we have ended 2019 with 35 volunteers. In 2020 we hope to continue expanding the opportunities available. Please, reach out to us if you are interested on taking part.
Activities delivered at schools
This year we have provided a jointly agreed programme of play, sport and physical activity sessions as part of Curriculum Time physical education learning in 11 schools based in Glasgow. This service enhances pupil learning and create positive school experiences through the improvement of physical and mental health and well-being for school pupils, with identified benefits to learning, behaviour, attendance and academic achievement.
You can find more information here https://aandm.org.uk/tour-item/working-with-schools/
2019 in numbers
