The SPARX Youth Project, headed up by Mark Budner, works to provide youth and community based provision in Dogsthorpe and Welland. The project has been running in it's current form for the last 5 years, and was previously linked with John Mansfield School. Now, based at Christ the Carpenter Church in Dogsthorpe (and partnered with Dogsthorpe Methodist Church) the project has a number of different services it provides for the local community.
The project was named SPARX because through their work they are looking to put a spark into the lives of the young people around them - one of the main focal points is to help young people find their talents and abilities and start to develop and make use of them in positive ways. Mark and the team help them achieve this through the xl club, which is one of the Prince's Trust's national programmes.
Another big focus for SPARX is on identifying issues for local young people and finding ways to address them. The biggest example at the moment is antisocial behaviour, for which Dogsthorpe has been in the news for quite recently due to the shops along Central Avenue being a crime hotspot. To try to help solve this problem the project now has a shop on that parade in Dogsthorpe called “PE1 ZONE”, which serves as a drop-in for local young people. One of the long-term goals for the shop is to train the young people to manage it themselves to give them ownership and responsibility for the area, and to encourage peer-management among the young people.
SPARX also works on the Welland estate, which has had minimal youth work over the last few years. The team now has a van which allows them to provide a space for young people to hang out which visits the area several times a month. In the winter the van has sofas in the back and they serve hot drinks, and in the summer they have various games for the young people to enjoy.
The team have also been very involved with the Street Invasion summer youth project (www.streetinvasion.co.uk) for the last two years, which has been key in the development of youth work in Welland. In 2008 they started their regular visits with the van on Thursday evenings and the first Sunday of each month, and this work continues now. There are also plans to start having a regular time of worship in Welland, which will be kick-started at the 2010 Street Invasion week. Mark also has high hopes of running Youth Alpha courses following on from Street Invasion too!