Imagine being 16, rejected or abused by your ‘family’, perhaps you have already spent time in a young offenders institution or in care; do you run? The reality is your future holds a high chance that you will appear among the ranks of the homeless, drug addicted, jobless and prison population.

TBWP have been introduced to The Foyer Federation http://www.foyer.net/

130 Foyers operate throughout the UK providing safe environments that reconnect around 10,000 young people every year. Young people entering a Foyer are helped to take responsibility for their own development picking up the threads of education, developing skills for independence, perhaps rebuilding family relationships, overcoming mental health issues or developing stronger self confidence and self belief.

We are engaging with the Foyer in Bradford, West Yorkshire (click here to see all affiliates), to co-sponsor for 12 months (with ITV and Screen Yorkshire) through fund raising and donation, a community film school.  We have a target to engage 125 young people through the school in this period.

As of April 2010 the school has two classes and is growing after a slow start.  The challenge is persuading young people to participate but the team are getting better at this.  With some input from Blue Water the Foyer has designed a new website which will shortly be launched to help get their messages to their audience. The current crop of students are in the process of planning a special film to complement the Blue Water project - we will be 'selling' credits to appear at the end of the film in return for a single annual donation to help fund the project.

The Community School Project Coordinators

Mi-Lin Tham and Matt O’Brien have been engaged to get the Community Film School up and running.

Mi-Lin

Matt