“Anything is Possible!” - Bobbie Leigh's story
Bobbie Leigh is a young person who engaged with us here at Worth Unlimited Birmingham & Solihull. She lives on the Firs and Bromford estate near the Hub where we are based. When she finished school, she started a course at college but quickly discovered this was not the job she wanted to do for life. She completed the course, but did not know what to do with herself once it ended. She is someone who is comfortable with her own company, but this became being isolated and lacking social contact with her peers and her community. As a result, she became quite down and her confidence was really low.
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Over the last couple of years she has engaged with “Listenthreads”, our fashion social enterprise, and worked closely with Jane Barrett, the project lead. Through this, she met a group of young people she now calls friends and her confidence grew, even to the point where she felt ready to apply to The Prince's Trust programme and try to look for a job. |
Then Covid hit…
Since lockdown 1, Bobbie gradually found herself becoming more and more isolated. Sticking to the guidelines meant she had very little contact with her friends, youth workers and local community. By lockdown 3, she was lacking any reason to leave her house and reached the point where she was rarely even leaving her bedroom, lacking in both motivation and self-esteem.
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Over this time, Jane regularly sent her positive messages and popped round for doorstep chats. She dropped off weekly well-being packs, filled with chocolates, postcards with motivational quotes, nice bath bombs and smellies - and anything else that might make our young people feel cared for, important and not alone. |
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This regular contact and gentle nudging gradually encouraged Bobbie back out of her shell. This genuine, caring relationship with Jane and some regular mentoring has helped Bobbie to reengage with our weekly enterprise support sessions and to revisit an idea she had over a year ago on the theme that... “ANYTHING IS POSSIBLE!” |
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Bobbie and the rest of the support group have worked together to create an "Anything is Possible" image started to think about designs for a new clothing range. Bobbie is full of hope to see this design launched and hopefully seeing plenty of sales!! It's true what they say: Anything is possible if you believe in yourself… or, in this case, have someone else who will believe in you until you start to believe it for yourself! |
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