Sheffield Park Academy students awarded for community project

A group of Year 7-11 students at Sheffield Park Academy are celebrating after winning a regional award for their innovative, multi-year community project ‘Safe Together’. Building on years of research and meetings conducted by students over previous years, this year’s changemaker group took things further with the launch of an ‘Ask for Nik’ campaign – which aims to make it easier for young people to access help in public. The campaign gained local traction from businesses and recently won them the overall winner’s prize at a NextGenLeaders regional event. The process began in November 2022 after Sheffield Park Academy joined the NextGenLeaders programme – a scheme that encourages students across Yorkshire to be active citizens and make a meaningful impact in line with the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals. For this, students chose to tackle the 11th development goal, ‘Sustainable cities and communities’, and underwent multiple stages of developing their project. Firstly, students conducted research at primary and secondary schools to get a better understanding of what young people value and want from their local area, which included sending out questionnaires and presenting their project to classes. Based on this information, they developed a campaign idea – ‘Ask for Nik’ – to help promote and engage with local community spaces so that young people always have a place to go to for advice and help should they need it. They then met with their local MP and local police to gather support for their campaign. Their work gained the support of local branches of Lidl, the Co-op and the Post Office, who displayed the ‘Ask for Nik’ logo in their shop windows. The project also received support from Asda, with students pitching their ideas to South Yorkshire Director for Asda, Sally Duckering, who later invited them to speak to Store Managers in the region. The Managers pledged their support and have assisted the students in raising funds for additional resources as part of the campaign. Ambitions for the project are set to continue, as students plan to expand the support and reach of their campaign. Keren, a year 10 student at Sheffield Park Academy, said of the project: “NextGenLeaders has been an inspirational program to be a part of. They push us to think outside the box, teach us how to be positive influences and create leaders with critical mindsets who are prepared to tackle future problems. I am very happy to have taken part in this program.” Laura Booth, Lead Practitioner at Sheffield Park Academy, said: “We are very proud of our students for their hard work on this project, both this year and in previous years. Their engagement in a social action project that improves and benefits our local community has been really impressive and this NextGenLeaders award is a brilliant testament to that. “I would like to thank the businesses that have already supported the students, especially Asda, and I look forward to seeing the project grow even more in the years to come.”