UPDATE: Since this article was first published in April of this year, the Resilience Learning Partnership Team, through the RLP Crafty Kids Initiative, have gone on to deliver a staggering 2700 boxes. They have now expanded their reach by delivering wellbeing boxes which include toiletries and other personal care items.
Shumela Ahmed (Managing Director of Resilience Learning Partnership) writes about their new Crafty Kids initiative which has come to life in response to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.
As COVID-19 hit Scotland, and lockdown provisions were being put in place nationwide, we had to think about what we would do as an organisation to continue throughout the crisis. As we were making plans at an organisational level to work and coordinate from home, we were also dealing with the fact that some of us would be working from home with children present. As we brought home office supplies and materials to do our own work with, we also brought home some supplies for our own children. These consisted of the basic craft items such as coloured paper and card, glitter, glue and everything else in between (we are keen crafters and these are essential items in our office!).
This then led us to some interesting conversations with parents we are engaging with who did not have the resources we had taken for granted and brought home from our office to keep our own kids busy with during lockdown. Likewise, they also did not have the money to run out and buy these resources either.
So, we took some of our resources to some of the parents we were engaging with, so that their children now had the same as our own did at home. As we were doing this a light bulb moment happened… We realised that we could be doing this for more than the families and young people we are engaging with and thus the RLP Crafty Kids initiative was born.
We could not have anticipated the support the boxes have received, and we now have enough funding in place to guarantee there will be at least 1000+ boxes delivered within the next month. We have secured funding for these boxes with all of the funds we have secured going directly to providing the boxes for children and young people across Central Scotland. We will continue to seek funding throughout lockdown to ensure we can keep making this difference however, if you would like to donate towards a box or two you can give a donation below. We understand these are unprecedented times and that many people are struggling and so understand if this is not possible. If you can make a donation then we would like to say THANK YOU in advance and that your donation really is making a difference in children and young people’s lives right now. Make sure you check out our Facebook Page to see the impact of the boxes across Scotland.
We are also considering taking the boxes to other groups of people who are particularly vulnerable during lockdown such as over 65’s and males under the age of 45, an age group who is at particularly high of suicide. Please do get in touch and let us know what you think and if you have any suggestions on other groups we could get boxes to.
If you would like to make a donation to our Crafty Kids Survival Box project, then please use our donation button below. Alternatively, if you like to donate some arts and crafts supplies to our project, please contact us direct!
