You need to upgrade your Flash Player This page uses content created using Flash 8 and requiring the Flash 9 Player. If you believe that you have the required Flash player version to view this content then bypass the detection if you wish. Otherwise, head on over to the Adobe website to download the latest version.

Badger Tenants and Residents Association

Badger TARA are based in Woodhouse in Sheffield.

The Badger Tenants and Residents Association’s project ‘Young Badgers’ developed a youth forum and a young person's website. The youth forum members were trained in web design to enable them to create and update the website themselves; the website promotes activities in the local area with the aim of getting young people involved with the community and its future.

Kathryn Taylor, Community Development Worker, Woodhouse writes:

The funding has enabled the Tenants and Residents Association to develop a youth forum and provide training in website development. The forum advertises activities for young people and is now in the process of becoming a constituted group. Laptops that have been purchased for the group allow them to pick up any emails they receive and design marketing materials to promote the group. Through their own methods of advertising they are and have been able to recruit new members to the forum. The groups strengths are that they are all committed to being a voice for the young people in the area, but they also realise that more work needs to be done to reach the young people who don’t necessarily engage in projects within the community. They meet on the first Friday of each month and have been asked to contribute their ideas to the South East Plan for the environment.

The group has worked in partnership with the local schools, active communities, Sheffield Futures, The Ranger Service, Friends of Shirtcliffe and Local Heritage Groups. They have also made presentations to the Woodhouse and District Community Forum and are now a valued group within the main forum. Each member contributed their ideas for the development of the website at the first meeting.

This project did not exclude any young person in the area. The planning of where, when and how to provide training and meetings was crucial to enable easy access to all new and existing members of the group. The Badger Tenants and Residents Association arranged a meeting for the young people who were interested in forming a youth forum, and their parents, at a local school. This session was used to inform the young people and parents that everything created would be owned by the young people and that this would be achieved with support from appropriate adults. It also allowed the young people and parents to ask questions and engage in discussions about the project.

The Youth Forum has been approached by the neighbouring communities of Birley, Beighton and Woodthorpe to help them set up a Youth Forum using the same model as Woodhouse Youth Forum. It is envisaged that once all neighbourhoods throughout the South East of Sheffield have Youth Forums, there will be a Youth Assembly. We are currently working with Sheffield Futures to arrange voice and influence workshops for each of the groups and their members.