First 1001 Days – Storytelling Sessions
Reform Radio is an award winning online radio station, broadcasting the best in arts, culture and music from Manchester to the World. Reform uses the engagement of radio and the arts to support 18-30 year olds into employment.
Reform Radio have been working in partnership with GIL and Sure Start since April 2020 to deliver First 1001 Days – Storytelling Sessions. These are a series of 6 workshops, engaging new parents and their babies across Gorton and Clayton. The workshops explore storytelling, creative writing, the importance of characters and narrative and result in the group creating their own bespoke story for their babies. This is then recorded and turned into an audio book, which can be used to support literacy at home, language development and wellbeing.
This project is part of the First 1001 Days programming in partnership with Manchester City Council and Manchester Health and Care Commissioning.
Through accessing this project, all families are signed up to Manchester Imagination Library, receiving a free book each month until their child is 2 years old. There is also wrap around support provided and access to Speech and Language, Outreach Teams and Employability support through all partners involved.
What Manchester Imagination Library think about getting the Queen’s Award for Voluntary Service?
We are overwhelmed to receive the Queen’s Award for Voluntary Service, which reflects on the work carried out by the volunteers of the project. Most importantly though is that we have received this award on behalf of the families who have benefitted from this project and we will carry on applying for funds and working with partners to enable the project to reach ALL children aged under 5 years across Manchester.
