oxygennews

Jack Petchey Support for Oxygen

Local Charity Oxygen has been awarded a grant of £6,850 by the Jack Petchey Foundation to help it establish a second Rm1 afterschool club at Hollyfield School in Surbiton.

Oxygen’s Rm1 was developed in response to the concerns raised by parents of year 7,8&9 pupils across Kingston Borough who, during a consultation said that their child had nowhere to go after school. Working with the Extended School Clusters, Children’s Services and Schools, Oxygen has developed Rm1 to provide a safe, caring and supportive after school club, where young people are encouraged to develop, learn about themselves and the wider community.

At Rm1 a wide range of young people are given a place to relax, undertake their homework as well engage in creative and participative activities such as sports, arts and multimedia project all designed to help them overcome the personal and social barriers they face and to build self esteem and social skills. Older school pupils and young people on a gap year with Oxygen provide most of the activities for the pupils at Rm1, acting a peer mentors, giving advice and support in the process.

Rm1 Hollyfield, also supported by Surestart is being delivered by Oxygen in partnership with the Kingston & Wimbledon YMCA. For more information on Rm1 contact Bex Murch on BMurch@kwymca.org.uk or via 020 8339 9329 or Richard James on richard@oxygen-online.org and 020 8547 0566

What is Rm1 in Korean?

Seung Kwan Kim
Originally uploaded by Oxygen KB YFC

Hi, I wanted to give you a quick update so you could pray for me. I am please to report that most of my projects are mostly fine. Further to the prayer request from a couple of weeks ago in Korean Club, I'm having a good relationship with those guys, and which is really great.

However this week the Korean work is set to grow as for in a new development I will begin work with Korean Boys who are attending in Coombe boy school. This is an exciting new focus for Oxygen’s Korean work, instead of working with young people after school, I am providing support to the Korean students around the school day – providing mentoring, support and help with their English. I also hope in time to be able to encourage them to come along to Rm1 and get to know us there. From there I hope over future weekend to run other events such as talent shows, basketball competitions and the alike.

So this is my prayer request for this week

Working with Korean young teenage boys is sometimes really difficult, they often are closed and don’t want to chat. Could you therefore pray for relationship between me and Korean guys.

Pray too for this new focus for Oxygen’s work, that it would grow, have a great impact and that many Korean teenagers, not just in Coombe Boys, but across the Borough would be able to be supported

The dark power of Wii, episode 2

Anne Pawlak
Originally uploaded by Oxygen KB YFC

In addition to a large number of games and equipment to help pass the time after school, Rm1 Coombe also has a so-called 'whiteboard' - perfectly white, as the name suggests, and which with its very presence is more or less begging you to test your dexterity with a good thick black marker pen to give purpose to your artistic impulses and to adding thought-provoking slogans, or even to play at being teacher. We realised how useful this was at the beginning of the month, as using the whiteboard we were soon debating questions and topics which had been written up on the board, stimulating small talk, conversation and even sometimes deep discussions!

Last week it was my turn to prepare the whiteboard for the topic which was fair trade, so with measureless enthusiasm I attacked two boys who were harmlessly engaged in trying to knock Lego Indiana Jones figures off a cliff (the new Wii game).

I could have asked them for any question that might occur to them around cash crops, exploitation and fair trade...but my enthusiasm gave way first to mild disappointment and then to total frustration. Every attempt to persuade those two youth to give utterance to any statement of more than three words was a failure. I had to concede that, under the influence of the wii, I was about as interesting to them as a lettuce to a shark.

So I reached the end of last week and I was disappointed and had begun to have serious doubts about my suitability as a Youthworker, but unbeknown to me, things were about to change and the young people at Rm1 Coombe were getting ready to surprise me.

Chocolate bananas rule- or the dark power of the wii weakens
With nerves like piano wires and a few new English expressions calculated to check the boys' squabbles and misdemeanours, off I went to work. But my expectation, that I would find pandemonium, was not fulfilled. What happened instead was this: as we were preparing the daily snacks [fair trade chocolate bananas, as a subtle reference to last week's white board discussion topic] one boy delightedly explained the difference between fair trade food and the rubbish food they use in their cooking lessons.

One other boys were impressed by the amazing taste of the chocolate and asked for more information about fair trade, and we finished the Thursday evening session with a song of praise to fair trade fruit and chocolate...made up on the spot.

be blessed
Cookie (Anne)

Rm1 End of Year Report

www.flickr.com

Rm1 grew out of a consultation carried out by the extended schools network with parents and students at Coombe Boys  School where the need for after school provision was discussed. At junior school level after-school care is often available but this was not replicated when the young people went to secondary. Oxygen were brought in to run the project for year 7 &  8 students, 3pm – 5.30pm, 5 nights a week. The project aims to provide a safe space for the young people to chill, study and play. Alongside the Rm1 leader Kate Davies, gap year workers and volunteers work to build relationships and encourage participation in activities. Rm1 also acts as a signpost to other activities in the area. An end of year one Rm1 report is now available to download from here the Oxygen website.

Tags: rm1, oxygen, kingston yfc, coombe boys school

Staff Recruitment Update

It has been a busy term as we have sought to complete the appointment of our Gap year Workers as well as work with our partners to appoint workers at St Peters Norbiton and the YMCA.

This process now approaches it conclusion in the next 10 days. We have a couple of GAP year interviews taking place this week and then interviews with St Peters and the YMCA this week and next.

Please do pray for us as we make the significant appointments. Pray particularly for the appointments running the Rm1 Project in Hollyfield and the church workers at ST Peters. These project leaders will play a vital role in leading and directing Oxygen’s work in the year ahead.

More on the St Peters post here

More on the Rm1, YMCA post here

Boroughthon 2008

Embedded Video

It started at 10.30 and finished just before 6pm, it lasted around 20 miles and involved many sore feet and sweaty people.

It was the the Oxygen 2008 Boroughthon involved the Oxygen team, volunteers and young people spanning the entire length, breadth and width of the Borough to visit the site of each of the Oxygen projects in Kingston Borough. This video gives you snapshots of some of our walk, without any shots of developing blisters

Borough-thon 27th May

To mark the first seven successful years of their work with young people and to help fund work in the next seven, myself and a group of Oxygen staff, gap workers and volunteers are going to undertake the mammoth task of visiting each of the 18 Oxygen projects in just 7 hours.

Leaving the Oxygen centre at 10am,we will head out to the Cambridge Estate, Kingsnympton Estate, Richmond Park, Kingston Vale, North Kingston, Kingston town Centre, Surbiton town centre, the Alpha Estate, Tolworth Girls School, Hook’s Devon Way Youth Centre, Chessington Methodist Church, Venner Youth Centre, Coombe Boys School, New Malden High Street, Kingston Road, before arriving back at Oxygen by 5pm . Altogether we will cover around 20 miles as they span the entire width of Kingston Borough.

Would you consider making a donation towards our sponsored efforts via:
http://www.justgiving.com/boroughthon

All donations are secure and sent electronically to Oxygen. If you are a UK taxpayer, Justgiving will automatically reclaim 28% Gift Aid on your behalf, so your donation is worth even more. 

Thanks and best wishes,

Richard

The 2008 Borough Community Road Shows

The Kingston Borough Community Road Shows are RBK organised events intended to reach out to the local community to promote services and important issues and they are looking for groups to come along and be involved. They are looking for a wide range of services and organizations for families with children and young people aged 0-19 to be available with activities, goodies and details about their service.

Following the great success of last years Road Show events across the borough, the Extended School Managers are pleased to announce details of the 2008 Road Shows. The details of the dates and venues for this years road shows are:

• Tuesday 24th June 2008, Alexandra Recreation Ground, Surbiton
• Friday 27th June 2008, Dinton Fields, St Agatha’s Drive, Kingston
• Wednesday 2nd July 2008, Dickerage Adventure Playground, Dickerage Lane, New Malden
• Thursday 3rd July 2008, Churchfields, off Compton Crescent, Chessington

The road shows will run after school, 3.00-6.00pm with set up from 1.30pm. There is no cost for being involved. It would be great for us as Oxygen to work with churches in each area to promote the work underway in that location. In addition to working with Oxygen, any group who wish to run their own stall would find themselves coming into contact with children, young people and families from across the community.

For more information on this great event and Oxygen's input contact Richard James on 020 8547 0566 or email richard@oxygen-online.org

Tea and Cakes @ Rm1

Old fashioned family time has become one of the highlights of Oxygen's all new Rm1 project at Coombe Boys School in recent months. Each week those young people who are coming gather in the room straight after school and takes their first 1/2 hour to run off their energy, as they play pool, computer games or simply RELAX on the Rm1 sofa. But this post school energetic hyperactivity soon comes to an end and these emerging teenagers are then often found in the kitchens with the Oxygen workers, making cakes, buttering toast and preparing tea that can then be brought in to the Rm1 tables which they and the Oxygen workers gather round for a daily catch up, talking about the news from the day. 

So if you were to spy on Rm1 on most weekday evenings you would find groups of young people and Oxygen workers exchanging stories of frustration and hope, as they eat toast and cake and drink tea and juice. For those of a previous generation who find themselves confused by contemporary youth culture, here is a message of good news. The old fashioned ways of eating and talking together are making their way back and being seen as the some of the most powerful connectors with today’s young people!So if you are interested in sharing tea and cakes with pupils at Rm1 then we would love to hear from you. These young people would love someone to sit and chat with. Age is not important although we would love to increase our ‘more senior’ volunteers!  

Simply email us so we can talk to you about helping out, and who knows we could all be eating your favourite cakes at Rm1 soon!  

   

Oxygen is now on Facebook

Oxygen is now on Facebook. Here we have posted the pictures from thevent as well as news of forthcoming events. Become our friend by clicking here: