Construction students building community links with charity shelters and observation hide

First and second-year Carpentry and Joinery learners teamed up together to provide an observation hide for Hempland Primary School pupils and a collection of smoking shelters for employees at the charitable organisation Brainkind.

As well as giving something back to the community, the projects provided our students and apprentices with invaluable real-life experience, as they employed all of their developing skills to deliver a brief from workshop to client.

On the importance of such initiatives, Carpentry & Joinery Team Leader Adam Keene said: “These projects were an uplifting opportunity for our students to take some of the skills that they are learning in College and use them in a different environment that might be outside of their comfort zone with people who they don’t know watching what they are doing. I’m also a big believer that you should give something back to your community if you can. 

“I do loads of volunteering myself and it gives you a nice sense of well-being that I’d like to pass on to the students for them to experience. If you have a skill, you can use it to help and benefit other people that don’t have it and that is very rewarding.”

The observation hide, with a structure that might best be described as an open-back shed, has proven a popular place for Hempland’s young children to watch wildlife on the school grounds by peeking through a narrow slat. 

Along with putting their building skills to the test, its construction also offered the students and apprentices an opportunity to demonstrate their communication and teamwork proficiency.

“When they were installing the hide, they were also liaising with the Facilities Manager about how it would be lifted in, how it would be assembled on site and where they would put the tools,” Adam explained. 

The smoking shelters also saw the group meet their client needs with Adam adding: “Brainkind provided all the materials and the students then made the shelter from scratch and assembled it at their site. We hope this kind of engagement will open their minds a bit in terms of the industry. 

“All of our team come from an industry background with 20 or 30 years of experience, but you can’t put a measure on how valuable it is to get a student out of the college environment and into a working environment to go and actually experience it.”

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