Celebrating volunteers, content creation with Hextol
It’s Volunteers’ Week and we’re shining a light on the work we’ve been doing with volunteers at Hextol in Hexham.
Hextol Foundation Is a non-profit charitable company created to support people with learning disabilities or mental health concerns with work placement opportunities. People are able to pick from five not-for-profit social enterprises to work for – catering; gardening; warehouse; pack & post or The Hextol Tans, a vegan cafe in Hexham.
Supporting these placements are a team of dedicated volunteers who choose to offer their skills and time for a variety of reasons; wanting to ‘give something back’; wanting to learn new skills themselves; wanting to gain confidence. Whatever brings them to the company, they are vital to its success.
We have been working with some of these brilliant volunteers to teach them new skills in content creation. The Digital Voice team taught the group how to use iPads for content creation apps like Canva; filming; editing; poster design; editing photos. Feedback from the group was very positive, with many people saying how much more confident they felt with technology:
“I LEARNED TO TAKE PHOTOS OF DIFFERENT THINGS AND DIFFERENT SHOTS. I WAS VERY GOOD AT THE EDITING AND WOULD LIKE TO DO IT MORE.”
“THE COURSE HAS HELPED ME GAIN MORE EXPERIENCE.I GOT TO GIVE NEW THINGS A GO LIKE FILMING A PROMOTIONAL FILM, MAKING A POSTER AND USING THE IPAD A LOT.”
Jo Elliott, Beneficiary Engagement Manager at Hextol, has also been very pleased with the results of the course:
“THE COURSE GAVE OUR VOLUNTEERS THE OPPORTUNITY TO USE EQUIPMENT THEY HADN’T TRIED BEFORE, ESPECIALLY THE GIMBAL. SOME HADN’T USED IPADS BEFORE EITHER AND IT GAVE THEM THE CONFIDENCE TO “HAVE A GO” IN A SUPPORTIVE ENVIRONMENT. IT WAS LOVELY TO SEE A GROUP OF OUR VOLUNTEERS WORKING TOGETHER ON A PROJECT AND PRODUCING SOMETHING AS A TEAM.”
If you have a group that would benefit from developing new skills in technology and the confidence boost that comes with it, we’d love to hear from you.
Details on all our programmes can be found here.