Blog | Middlesbrough Voluntary Development Agency

Sarah's first week at MEC

19 March 2021 - 2:22pm

Guest blog from Sarah Lattaway, CommUNITY Actions project lead at Middlesbrough Environment City (MEC)

I joined MEC amid the pandemic, and frankly with some trepidation. Having had my interview via teams I never met any of the staff I would be spending more time with than my own family, so you can understand my nervousness.

Bini Araia makes the case for facemasks

28 May 2020 - 11:57am

Bini Araia from local charity IPC is encouraging us all to wear facemasks and is inviting people to a conversation about facemasks on Zoom.

Please support and collaborate with others to bring about a life-saving effort to encourage everyone to make home-made cloth masks to wear in places where social distancing is difficult. This needs to become our social norm for a little while to help us all to keep Covid-19 at bay.

Join me on Zoom at 11am on Thursday 4 June for a conversation about facemasks, details at the end of this blog.

“If anyone kicks off with me, I’m walking out.” Using the arts to engage

22 January 2020 - 2:41pm

Guest blog by Jane Gray, Co-Director, Creative Learning North East

“If I’m bored, I’m walking out.”

“OK – that’s fine.”

“If anyone kicks off with me, I’m walking out.”

“That’s fine too. Thanks for letting us know.”

“I’m not performing. No way.”

“That’s ok. We can do it however you want to do it.”

Guest blog: Is one week to mark hate crime enough?

14 October 2019 - 1:27pm

Guest blog by Sara Mirsalehi, Operational Manager- Linx

12th-16th October is marked as a week of raising awareness of Hate Crime.

Is this enough? Do we as services only deal with Hate crime incidents during this week? You, of course know the answer yourself.

Using crafts to overcome barriers to volunteering

26 September 2019 - 2:20pm

Using craft sessions to boost your CV? Yes, it works, and let me explain how.

My role at MVDA is volunteer development officer for the Step Forward Tees Valley project which aims to overcome barriers to work for people. One of the ways we do this is by supporting a participant into a volunteering position to enhance their skills, develop their confidence and boost their CV’s.