From April 2006 – September 2008 we were commissioned by Doncaster Metropolitan Borough Council's Social Inclusion Team to deliver a project called Making Waves which focused on the causes of poverty for individuals. We helped each participant identify these causes and then worked with them to remove the barriers which prevented them escaping the cycle of poverty.
As the project progressed, we started to move away from focusing on personal issues (substance misuse, offending behaviour, mental and physical health) that prevented people from learning and working and refocused on each individual and their creative development.
This approach produced results, effective partnerships, improved social skills, leaps in confidence and renewed creativity. Participants were now ready for new challenges and able to reflect on their successes and bumps in the road. Ultimately the project contributed to participants increased stability, commitment and ability to move forward.
We wanted to the impact of this project to be demonstrated creatively, through the personal stories of the people we worked with. Over the life of the project we documented the stories of 55 of the 173 individuals.
These stories were produced as a cd-rom and series of postcards, and at the time of production were accompanied by exhibitions of the participants work on the project.
To order copies of the cd-rom and postcards please email: darts@thepoint.org.uk.