CAREDAY2022

Posted 18th February 2022

One of our Founders writes about what community means to him below:

The entire point of a community is helping each other, there’s no point of it if you don’t help each other. I would help my friends in House Project if they needed, and they would help me. Even if their House Project is far away, in another city, I would walk if I had to, I am there for them and they are there for me.

I would hope anybody that joins or participates in House Project in any way shape or form, whether that’s staff or a young person in care that is being helped by this, I hope they find the sense of community and friendship that I have in the House Project.

The House Project has given me the best friendships I’ve ever had with staff and young people. They’ve helped me in so many ways, and I am so grateful. The staff genuinely care, it’s how they are with young people, how they communicate, they see us as young people, not a child in care. They see us as genuine people. For me, it’s a family dynamic, they see you as part of the family. Parents would do anything for their children, and The House Project would do anything in their power to help us because they want to make change.

It has been harder with Covid, I’m not tech savvy, and I don’t do online and prefer face to face but we can’t really do that with Covid. People have zoom chats, and WhatsApp group, but I don’t really do that, so it’s been hard. I’ve explained issues I have to them, and they help me participate in everything and helped me in every way they can. They make you feel belong.

I have a community with other young people too because we get to meet up, and talk about the differences between our areas, and their experience with care.  We get to meet different people that we wouldn’t normally meet, but we’ve got that sense of community, because we’ve all been in care. We actually have that experience. I’ve made friendships for life, they’ve experienced a lot of the same things I have, with mental health issues, and I’ve seen them get through it, and we all want to help each other.

You have a group here that doesn’t care about your past, and only cares about you now, and how you’re going to be in the future. People make mistakes, people have a past, but if you look past that and help them now, that’s a community. I feel like I belong at the House Project.

This chapter is part of our Peer Evaluation report- full report here.