Some thoughts about us
Dear Neil and Members,
We would like to send a little thank you email just to express our gratitude for what the Garon Park, Southend on Sea, Men in Shed have done for Harrison.
The short workshop that you personally arranged for Harrison to go over his carpentry skills and the starting process has done amazingly for him. It’s given him more confidence to express himself in his volunteering places and helped put himself forward for more small maintenance jobs, because he now knows how to look after tools, what tools are what, more using maths for measurements and being a bit more precise and saying/telling people what he wants to do and why he is doing it when helping them.
It's such a shame that we had to completely come out of our borough LBBD as they were not able to provide a carpentry course that was just based around a refresher and forcing him into doing a full 3-year carpentry course in mainstream, which just made his anxiety and previous bullying issues worse.
Harry was 21 years of age and had left college with no idea on what kind of job he would like to try for even, his love of animals has made him go down the route of volunteering at The Wellgate Community farm on the borders of Dagenham and Redbridge, and from this he has turned out to be a very, very valuable member, with his new skills.
He also wanted to volunteer at Colchester Zoo and Wildwood Trust in Kent. He was not successful at Colchester due to them not having enough mentors to help young people with learning disabilities. However Wildwood welcomed him and gave him the chance to slowly start with 1 day and over the last couple of months, have realised the little unknown skills he has kept quiet about and are now asking him to do extra days when he can, they are moving him about in all different maintenance groups from helping to mend fences , painting fences, working in enclosures and hopefully getting him to try SOME customer service skills just to mingle more with the general public but all with the hope of building his confidence .
All of the new progress he has achieved was with the help of Garan Park Shed and the effort they have put in to bring out so much in him. This shows how much he can do if patience and time is given to him, which the schools and colleges couldn’t fully achieve. Even the Barking Job Centre are happy with his achievements and effort he has put into finding these volunteering roles.
Harry has asked to see if he can go back and I am speaking with Neil referring to how and when we can fit this in.
So, so pleased and cannot praise them enough, they so need as much funding and praise for what they do
Kind Regards,
Lisa Ablett & Terry White
Oc
tober 2024
There will be more reviews of the Garon Park Shed to come
There will be more reviews of the Garon Park Shed to come
There will be more reviews of the Garon Park Shed to come