Bradford City FC Community Foundation and Northern Rail have worked in partnership since 2016, expanding opportunities for railway exploration in both Calderdale and Bradford District to thousands of students who have participated in the National Citizen Service (NCS) programme.
NCS is a government-funded youth programme for 16–17-year-olds which aims to tackle social cohesion, social mobility and social engagement. NCS programmes usually take place during the summer holidays and during October half term with a mix of residential and non-residential activities, followed by social action delivery.
The challenge designed in partnership with Northern introduces young people to the ease of access to train travel across the district and provides them with the opportunity to identify and tackle issues in their local community in an engaging way. Over the past 6 years, 60,000 hours of social action has been delivered by young people on our NCS programme.
Through 2020, despite the complications and challenges of the Covid-19 pandemic, the Community Foundations’s partnership with Northern enabled students to complete the Keep Doing Good programme to design, pitch and create a mural representing the diversity of Bradford, young people, key workers and the pandemic itself.
This is now proudly on display on stations across Bradford and has led to some fantastic opportunities for two of the young people involved.
Komal has received two awards from the council, one for Young Entrepreneurship and another for Young Creativity.
The project also opened the opportunity for one of our graduates, Shamza, to travel to London to meet Boris Johnson for a BBQ as part of the national BBTHANKQ movement. Here she spoke with the Prime Minister in-depth about the mural, our work with Northern and her continuous involvement with NCS and Bradford City Community Foundation’s Change Makers programme.
This year, the Community Foundation worked with Northern on numerous new projects to promote the use of the railway, and the Rivers and Canal network to promote further exploration of Bradford.
NCS Bradford saw 346 young people engage with the programme this summer, with the closest gender split they’ve ever had at 49% to 51% female to male with young people of all different diversities and backgrounds. The young people participated in 18 social action
projects – from sponsored stadium clean-ups, renovation of outdoor spaces in integrated
care homes, and national campaign ideas.
One project the young people participated in was a campaign that sought to help refugees navigate their way through Bradford using public transportation networks. The young people gave information on how to navigate to areas such as Bradford Royal Infirmary, Refugee Action and Citizens Advice.
The success of this project led to the creation of a video promoting the greater exploration of Bradford using the Bradford Forster Square line and the Rivers and Canals network – promoting the campaign “Go Do Your Thing”. This video was a huge success and will now be displayed on notice boards across numerous stations in the region.
This year, the Bradford Challenge was able to return to its traditional format as national restrictions loosened ahead of the summer holidays, enabling our students to once again use the train network for community mapping.
This was a fantastic opportunity for students to make use of the rail network for what was for many their first time on a train. The challenge saw young people commuting between Bradford Forster Square, Frizinghall, Saltaire, Shipley and Apperley Bridge taking photos at key landmarks in between.
This year NCS has been more crucial and beneficial to the young people involved than any year before. With them spending a year and a half under heavy lockdown restrictions, unable to see their friends, socialise and even at times not go to school.
Every factor of normal life had been adjusted for many of the young people. NCS
was able to offer them an escape from their daily activities, and offer them new opportunities, skills and given them the opportunity to do things they would never have
imagined doing before.
