Team Dynamite

Three young lads from Dyke House in Hartlepool are bringing some festive cheer and care to those in real need this Christmas period.

Kevin, Stephen and Tyler from Dyke House, an incredibly deprived housing estate with unbelievably high levels of unemployment, anti-social behaviour, poverty and a real lack of provision and opportunity. After meeting at the Wharton Trust the group soon began their Key Journey, starting out small with a trip to a sports dome to try out a range of new activities before going on to planning a trip away to a ski slope for their youth centre to learn how to ski and then a community trip to Scarborough for Stage 3.

After involving the community in so many of their earlier stages, Team Dynamite wanted to go above and beyond to selflessly help their local community at Stage 4 and so the four young men got together to think about what people and families living within Dyke House really needed at Christmas.

After coming up with a number of different options, the group reached out to local residents to quiz them on what they thought of their ideas. Filled with positive feedback and some challenging questions, the group decided that they wanted to create family hampers for those less fortunate this winter period.

The group got to planning but soon hit a wall when they struggled to think of enough items to include in their family hampers. Not wanting to let this stop them for too long though, they came up with a brilliant idea to ask community members to each suggest one item they couldn’t live without at Christmas. The lads scoured the internet for the cheapest prices of toys, toiletries, foods and care items ready for panel with hopes of impressing with their hard work and dedication.

It was clear to see how much work Team Dynamite had put into their community Stage 4 Project. Their communication skills has excelled significantly with this project as they chose to put themselves in a position where they need to communicate with those  they didn’t know and ask people who could potentially benefit from their idea what they really thought. Stephen said the project had ‘opened his eyes to what is going on in his community and how little people had’. With a strong yes at panel he was ‘looking forward to seeing people happy and giving others gifts that meant so much to them and their families at Christmas when they really did have nothing’.

The group’s Key Facilitator, Jade, said that Team Dynamite had ‘helped other young people in Dyke House see that if they’re willing to put in the work then they can achieve anything they really want just like Team Dynamite did.’ The three young men have managed to plan a project that has benefitted a community in need, built spirits and spread some festive cheer. It’s also helped older members of the community to not be afraid of young people from the estate. It’s shown them that they are there and willing to help.