The Roundwood Youth Centre has linked up with the College of North West London to offer graphics and music students work experience projects.
The coalition is set to benefit both sides as the students get live briefs to work on, as they would in employment, and the youth centre get services for free, which helps when funds are limited.
The first project has been for the BTEC graphic design students. The group of eight students have already started work on a poster and leaflet design brief to help promote Roundwood and they met with one of its lead youth workers, Anthony Rivers, last week to see what their ‘client’ thought of the work so far.
Anthony commented on working with the students at the College saying: “This has been a fantastic opportunity for both the CNWL and Roundwood Youth Centre. The project has pushed the students to work professionally as a team and with an external organisation. The students have also demonstrated high levels of skills in their chosen field which will no doubt lead them to a successful future”
And the partnership between Roundwood and the College doesn’t stop there. Music technology students are also planning to link up with the youth centre.
The group of 12 students, who enrolled on the brand new course this term, are planning to record a series of podcasts to be aired on Roundwood’s internet based radio station – which attracts 500-600 listeners every Friday evening.
Pete Mackie, the course leader, commented: “My aim with the course is to take the students out from behind their desks and get them involved in real projects, showing them how they’ll work in the real world. This week they have learnt how to script, record and produce a podcast and the idea is to produce podcasts for Roundwood’s radio station and then hopefully they’ll be doing some workshops for the youngsters at the youth centre at a later date.”
The course, a BTEC level 2 in creative digital music production, is brand new to the College. It focuses on music technology and the College invested over £30k into the equipment, which includes recording studios and a whole suite of Apple Mac computers and music keyboards, with garage band and logic software. Pete Mackie, a musician and composer who has been brought in to the College to run the new course is loving the enthusiasm and commitment of the students on the course and is thrilled to be able to get them working on projects like this one with Roundwood. He added: “I hope to get the students working with lots more local businesses to give them as much work experience as possible as that’s the best way for them to learn.”