Youth volunteers digging up the past
Youth volunteers from ETEC Development Trust are digging into a project to renovate an historic part of Houghton-le-Spring.
Learners from ETEC’s Entry to Employment (E2E) programme are among 60 people participating in a project, organised by the Community Service Volunteers (CSV) Springboard VTeam, to renovate the Houghton Hillside cemetery.
The nine young people; aged 16 to 19, will be renovating the graveyard as part of the annual CSV Action Earth Programme.
The teenagers, who are all studying construction skills, are building a set of steps and viewing platform at a new cenotaph, which commemorates those who died in the Houghton Le Spring mining disaster.
They are learning team-building skills and working with young people from throughout Sunderland while gaining practical construction skills on-site and a qualification as a result of undertaking voluntary work.
Mark Steele, ETEC’s E2E Construction Tutor, said: “Helping to build the timber and dolomite steps will provide members of the public – in particular older people, who predominantly use the cemetery – with safe access to the cenotaph.”
The project will bring together individual volunteers, Friends of Hillside Cemetery, participants from Springboard Sunderland and learners from ETEC. Gentoo have donated some of the materials, which will be used on-site.
The project has been organised by Brian Watson MBE, Youth Volunteer Development Manager with the VInvolved Team.
The work evolved from a volunteer event, which Brian organised recently at Hillside Cemetery, in which 100 young people worked with Friends of Hillside Cemetery to improve the cemetery’s environment.
Brian said: “This project is bringing communities together and assisting people, who need the help. It’s also shows some of the good work, which young people can do.”
Words and photo by ETEC.