Letters to Eachstep Care Home from Blackburn Children’s University

Children’s University members were asked to write a letter to the residents at Eachstep Care Home.  Here are a couple of letters: one from Humaira in year 1 at St Silas Primary School and another from Jemima and Alisha, two sisters at Wensley Fold Primary School. 

All activities took place remotely and in accordance with government guidelines on COVID 19.  

Message to Eachstep Care Home from the 5th Rishton Brownies

The 5th Rishton Brownies have been holding their weekly meetings online for the past 5 weeks. The Brownies are aged 7 to 10 years old and do a variety of activities while working towards different badges. Their meetings have been slightly different since the lockdown and, last week, they decided to record some messages for the care home residents at Eachstep following the postponement of project activities due to the pandemic. The children wanted to pass on positive comments to the residents to let them know they care.

All activities took place remotely and in accordance with UK government guidelines on COVID 19.  

College and Children’s University to Commemorate VE Day at Home

Blackburn College University Centre is teaming up with Blackburn Children’s University to take part in a Stay at Home VE Day Party.

The stay at home party will take place on Friday 8th May 2020 to commemorate the 75th anniversary of VE Day, as part of the Heritage Lottery Funded WWII East Lancashire Childhoods: Sharing Stories, Making Memories project.

The event will see staff and students from the University Centre at Blackburn College and children from Blackburn Children’s University have picnics or afternoon tea in their homes or gardens, make bunting and flags, bake buns and write poetry.

Participants will be asked to share their VE Day moments by sending in photographs and short videos.

Project Leads Sandra Nichol, Lecturer in BA (Joint Honours) Pathways, and Dr Valerie Jessop, Programme Leader BA (Joint Honours), Lecturer in English Language and Linguistics, said: “We are looking forward to seeing all the photographs and videos of people commemorating the event in their own homes. These will be used to create a digital record of people’s activities and will be posted on our project website.”

Sara Burton, Blackburn Children’s University Manager, said: “This is a little bit different than what we had planned, but we still wanted to commemorate this momentous event. Children from Blackburn Children’s University have already been completing various challenges like painting pebbles red, white and blue, writing letters and making poppies.

“For VE Day we will be encouraging our members to make bunting, party hats and even have a picnic at home. I can’t wait to see the pictures and videos of how they are all commemorating this event.”

The Sharing Stories, Making Memories project is an inter-generational community arts project which commemorates the events of WWII. For more information visit smallstories.blackburn.ac.uk.

The project’s original VE Day 75th anniversary commemoration was initially set to take place at the College’s University Centre but was cancelled due to the Coronavirus pandemic.