My week with the FaithAction team

Over the last 6 weeks, the FaithAction team has welcomed a number of Year 10 and Year 12 students taking part in work experience schemes from local schools. We asked one of our Year 12 students, Tyra, to share her reflections of her week with the FaithAction team.

Monday

On my first day of work experience, I was given a tour of the office, and an introduction to all the staff members. I spent the majority of my day doing research on FaithAction, LifeLine Projects (FaithAction’s accountable body), and Healthwatch Barking and Dagenham. I also read the Healthwatch annual report and annotated any improvements which could be made.  In the afternoon, Andrew gave Mara and I a detailed introduction to FaithAction, and the work that they do. I particularly enjoyed learning about the Faith Covenant, which was created to allow different faith groups to act as advocates for the community through forming a relationship with local authorities, deconstructing the mistrust between them.

Tuesday

On Tuesday morning, I continued doing my research on FaithAction, learning more about the work that the charity does. I joined a meeting with the FaithAction team, where they were discussing upcoming work with the APPG on Faith and Society. After the meeting, I did research on Coptic Orthodox Churches in the UK, after someone from their UK team contacted FaithAction. From my research, I found that there weren’t many Coptic Orthodox churches in the UK because of the relatively small migration from Egypt- as Coptic Orthodox communities originated from Egypt.

Wednesday

On Wednesday, we went to a local leisure center to support the Healthwatch Barking and Dagenham team by completing questionnaires to the public. Feedback from the questionnaires helps to improve local health and social care services. At first, when I approached people, they were not interested in completing the survey. However, as time passed, I was able to gain more responses. After this, I joined a Creative English session, with this session focusing on financial literacy. I participated in a role play alongside the participants of the session, which focused on acting out the process of setting up a direct debit with the bank. Towards the end of the day, I had to research the different mosques within Barking and Dagenham to help the team that supports the Barking and Dagenham Faith Leaders Network, and I created a table with their name, contact details and website link.

Thursday

On Thursday, I worked from home, and I spent the day writing a blog on how young people get involved in faith-based social action. One of the challenges I faced when writing the blog was relating the social action that the young people due to faith, as without intensive research, it was difficult to find concrete examples of the faith based social action work that young people have done.

Friday

On my last day of work experience, I wrote a blog on my thoughts and reflections from the week. Reflecting on the variety of activities which I have completely throughout the week is extremely important as I was able to think about the different skills which I have developed, and I was able to identify more areas of development.

Highlights

My highlight of the week was participating and observing the Creative English session. I enjoyed observing the direct impact that the session has on individuals because I was able to see how their confidence when speaking specific English phrases has grown. I also liked interacting with the community and doing the role play on a scenario based on financial literacy.

Overall reflections

I liked how this work experience opportunity exposed me to a variety of tasks throughout my time with the team, which allowed me to develop a range of skills.  One of the skills I developed was communication. I enhanced this skill on Wednesday, when I approached people at the leisure center, asking them to complete the questionnaire. On Wednesday, I also developed my adaptability skills. I transitioned from asking people to complete a ‘quick survey’ to informing people that the survey would only take two minutes. I noticed that through this new approach, I was able to gain more responses, perhaps because people realized that completing the survey wouldn’t take much time out of their day. Lastly, I liked having the experience of working from home, whilst also being in the office. This exposed me to the realities of working in modern society where hybrid working is extremely common.

Although this work experience was a very valuable experience, I would have enjoyed doing more practical tasks, such as interacting with the community- similar to the work I had done on Wednesday morning.

Conclusions

In conclusion, working with FaithAction and Healthwatch Barking and Dagenham throughout the week was a valuable experience. I have enjoyed developing new skills and learning more about the work done.