Town Twinning

Encouraging Youth Involvement

The difficulty remained with getting young people involved in the link and it was necessary to explore new avenues.

For this reason, work experience placements were offered to young people from Barking and Dagenham and Witten, in order to raise awareness of employment opportunities in the Single European Market and to improve language knowledge.

Over the past 8 years, a large number of pupils have worked in both towns and have benefited hugely from their stay, giving them increased confidence and ideas for future employment prospects.

Witten pupils have worked in Council offices, in schools as language assistants, at nurseries (looking after children and growing plants), at our community farm, Ford Motor Company and Aventis Pharma.

One pupil from Barking and Dagenham worked at a shop selling equestrian equipment.

A further area in which school children have been involved is joint project work, especially concerning environmental awareness issues. With information technology now widely used in schools, it is possible to exchange ideas and information without conducting a visit.

Primary School pupils have exchanged 'shoe boxes' of material such as drawings of their school, pictures of their home, meal times, pets and journey to school, nursery rhyme cassettes, toy money and their national flag. In this way, children can see how much they have in common with their partners, rather than concentrate on differences.