Langport All Saints - a youth empowerment project

Giving young people opportunities and skills

The regeneration project at All Saints Langport is being designed, managed, and led by young people. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

‘New Saints’ is the name of the committee set up in  April 2011, of eight local young people and one CCT young person (Mark Small). 

Follow the New Saints on Twitter

 

 

Our Project

The project’s primary aim is to provide the members of New Saints, and the young local community with skills and opportunities that they would not easily come by anywhere else. 

So far this has included business skills such as holding and chairing meetings, and giving presentations in front of the Town Council.  We have also gained experience in writing funding applications, managing social media, and being interviewed and photographed for the newspaper and radio. 

We are working on a range of accreditation possibilities, from informal accreditation such as being the local ambassadors for the project, to personal accreditation such as writing references and building CVs, to formal qualifications and recognised volunteer awards.

The project also aims to create a community resource – through the development of the project and through the use of the finished building.  The building is an asset to the town, but it is currently only being used occasionally.  By opening up the church with a new use, we can help to regenerate Langport whilst securing the future of the beautiful grade 1 listed building. 

We don’t know at this stage what the new use will be, that will be explored in the next phase of our project through working with the local communities to see what the Langport of the future will need.

Social media

One element that sets our project apart from the vast majority of heritage and regeneration projects is our use of social media within the project. 

Currently we’re using facebook, twitter and a blog to communicate, promote and engage, reflect, and tell the stories of the project. 

In the future we will have a Project Development Website (which New Saints will be trained to maintain and develop), giving us a central and professional ‘face’ for the project on the internet. This will allow us to use social media to a greater and more productive scale.

Langport - did you know?

Langport is a rural town in Somerset between Taunton and Yeovil. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The town has a rich history with links to trade, firstly through the River Parrett from the Bristol Channel, and later by being an important station on the railway network linking the South West to the rest of Britain. 

Notable figures with connections to All Saints church include Walter Bagehot, an influential businessman born, raised and buried in Langport, whose books still inform politics and economics students today, and George Stuckey whose locally established bank was the beginnings of NatWest.