Engaging creative minds – Aidan
Aidan is a creative and energetic 10 year old who lives in Brandon. He was looking for something different to do and got involved in our Thetford Youth Enterprise Challenge 2016/17, after attending our anti-bullying artwork exhibition in January with his mum and younger sister.
Although he didn’t enter our competition to design and sell an anti-bullying t-shirt, Aidan became very involved in the project and attended our enterprise workshops and supported our competition winners to promote and sell their t-shirts.
At the beginning of the project Aidan told us he wasn’t very confident in talking to new people or explaining his ideas. He also said he struggled to focus on things and was easily distracted.
At Pop Up Enterprises we’re passionate about informal education and we strive to ensure all our workshops are fun and interactive and offer lots of opportunities for young people to ‘learn by doing’. This approach helped keep Aidan engaged and enabled him to develop teamwork skills, business skills and to learn about his personal strengths and weaknesses.
Aidan also said at the beginning that he didn’t feel very motivated to take action on issues in his community but through this project he has helped to raise awareness of bullying and developed an understanding of social enterprise and the different ways he can help others in his community.
Reflecting on his experience, Aidan said ‘I enjoyed it a lot more than I thought I would! I have made a difference and helped to stop bullying.’