There was a party atmosphere in Boroughbridge, a small town in the North Yorkshire region of UK on 12 October 2012. With the support of the Isabel
Project, 26 Community Reporters from the area received their Institute of Community Reporters Certificates and Press Badges from Teresa Wilson
of Peoples Voice Media.
Among those receiving their awards were 19 staff and workers from Jennyruth workshops, a centre for people with learning disabilities, who have made two videos telling how they produced Olympic Torches for shops in Ripon and sent a gift to Ghana, a wooden model of Jonah and the Whale. The Isabel project also inspired one of the workers, Thomas Florence, to write and direct his own imaginative story “The Ripon Mysteries: the case of Zacharius Everstone”, which he entered for a national competition for young film makers in UK “Film the House”
And that’s not all for Jennyruth. During 2013, together with the Workers Educational Association, the staff and workers are using their skills and experience to continue to tell the stories of other communities in their local area.
It was also party time for other Boroughbridge reporters as they celebrated their stories about their local communities from traffic speeding in the local town to the joys of the “boogie” to the impact of a proposed waste incinerator – a full flavour of everyday life.
The community reporters were also delighted to see the stories from other Isabel reporters from across Europe and learn that that the Isabel Community would continue to flourish with the Institute of Community Reporters and the European Network of Community Reporters.