National Citizen Service (NCS)

The National Citizen Service (NCS) is a voluntary experience for students who are 15-17 years old. The scheme involves students staying away from home for 3 weeks. The first week is “adventure” where participants challenge themselves to complete activities such as canoeing and abseiling in teams. The second week is “discovery” where participants are sent to a university (mine was Reading university) to develop skills such as confidence, leadership and communication. During this week, we developed the focus skill of our group which was “media”. We met with a local rowing organisation and were given the task to film an advert raising awareness about their organisation. In the image you can see we are wearing cleaning equipment so we could clean all the boats used in our film! The final week is “social action”, where participants plan and deliver their own social action project. Our campaign “Plant a Wish” raised awareness about mental health and depression. The idea behind our campaign is to bring the community together, by planting plants, it can inspire people towards a goal. NCS was a fantastic experience, where I learnt how to be a more active participant within my community.