Caravan

Star rated Silver, Sleeps six, Access ramp only

Friends of Young Carers are a registered charity that provides holidays for families living in Wigan Borough who would not otherwise have a holiday.

Criteria

Friends of Young Carers provides short breaks to young carers and their families as well as parent carers and their families whose life is significantly affected by the impact of caring for a parent relative or a friend.

Referral Process

Families can be referred via a number of sources including Social Workers, Health Visitors, Teachers, and Doctors etc. However families can also refer themselves, as we would also like to reach those families who are not connected to any services, but still cannot manage to find money for a break away.

Benefits

The benefit of the break is immeasurable to the children and families. A holiday provides the carer with a break from everyday stresses, mundane tasks and routines. Young Carers are able to join in activities they would not normally have access to and enables the whole family to interact in a fun environment.

Contact

For more information or to obtain a referral pack please contact
Gladys Jameson – Caravan Co-ordinator on 01942 705985 e-mail address g.jameson@wiganmbc.gov.uk

The site can be seen here

 

Drama

In October 2006 the Youth Arts Challenge Project funded the scheme to take a group of Young Carer’s to Harmony studios in Bolton to create a DVD and Radio Play to raise the profile of young carers within the Wigan Borough. The aim of this DVD was to celebrate and promote the work these young people do and give them some respite from their caring role.

The Shining stars DVD contains interviews, a song written and recorded by the group and footage of them writing and making a radio play.

The play was set in Wigan, a group of three school girls who are young carer’s left school but one has forgotten her bag they all go back to look for it and found that a space ship from the planet Zob has crashed in the gym and the Aliens are searching for fuel, the fuel they need is 500 meat pies and luckily they have landed in Wigan, the aliens offer to morph into the shape of the girls and do their duties at home if they will agree to cook the meat pies to get them back to their own dying planet.

The aliens struggle in doing the girls caring role, they can’t believe the amount of work that the girls have to do to help look after their sick relatives and they can’t understand why they had a happy feeling for having helped someone.

The girls finish baking the pies and ask the aliens how they feel about helping someone they love.

They say they are very tired but do not know what love is as they do not help each other on their planet because there is only commanders and servants but they couldn’t understand how they felt all warm and tingly inside. The girls explained that this was love; helping someone you loved who needed you.

The Aliens bid them farewell and arrived back on Zob full of stories about love and friendship and the value of looking after and helping one another.

The planet Zob was never the same again.

The project was named Shining Stars and we would like to thank all our young carers for taking part and raising the awareness of issues surrounding young carers in Wigan .

This year we are planning to create a Drama with the help of The Wigan Pier Theatre Company. This is still at the early planning stage, any young carers who wish to take an active part in this project please contact us through this website.

Further details will follow