Barrow Sixth Form College student Iwan Cotgreave has been working on a great new project called Brightening Barrow with the hopes to help mental wellbeing in these tough times.
He was inspired to start the project after NCS (National Citizenship Service) was cut short due to Covid-19 and he wanted to continue working on a social action project.
Iwan has now teamed up with a group of like-minded people as well as careers service Inspira and community radio station Cando FM to bring people a podcast about Barrow to brighten their day.
“I wanted to make a difference in the local area and I realised that mental wellbeing was an important and prominent issue,” he said.
“I hope the podcast will be a real success and that people will give it a try and tune in to it while on the drive home. We would love to reach more listeners and we cover a range of topics including how to stay fit and healthy, raising money for Children in Need and good news stories.”
Iwan, who joined Barrow Sixth Form from St Bernard’s, has had to embrace new digital skills due to the Covid-19 pandemic. He has taken online training to try to optimise his skills to ensure the podcast is as professionally produced as possible.
As well as creating podcasts, Iwan is an Honours student at the Rating Lane campus studying A Levels in chemistry, physics and maths and is also doing an Extended Project Qualification on quantum mechanics with the focus of improving Artificial Intelligence.
When asked about combining his time he said: “It has been a challenging experience so far and I am a young leader at Scouts as well, however I love doing every subject at college and the extended lesson time gives me that extra time to really focus on the subjects, it’s brilliant!”
College careers advisor Sam Roberts said universities and employers look to see if applicants have given something back to the college or community.
“It is wonderful to see the commitment and enthusiasm that Iwan has shown to the Brightening Barrow Project. As well as helping a lot of people in the wider community, Iwan is developing many skills which will be very transferrable to his aspiration of studying Quantum Mechanics at university.
“The dedicated pastoral support, careers and work experience teams in college are committed to supporting students in gaining skills from extra-curricular activities. Iwan has shown initiative, motivation, resilience, excellent organisation and planning skills and is a very valued member of the college Honours programme. “
If you want to find out more about the Brightening Barrow project or what you can do to help out visit: brighteningbarrow.org.uk
To listen to the podcast, click here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCnloDBFvb-lme9iUNJR3Cyw
