"Part of how impactful this conversation can be is how hard-hitting it can be. And for some people to take it seriously… working with young people you can’t share the same stats… So it’s about how can you have the same impact..."
- Natasha Eeles
In this episode we speak with Natasha Eeles, Founder & CEO of Bold Voices and Yosh (Yosra) Soliman, Facilitation Lead at Bold Voices. Bold Voices is a social enterprise that seeks to provide an education for young people, free from gender inequality and gendered violence. Bold Voices Deliver content in schools and work directly with young people.
1. Why Natasha set up Bold Voices CIC
They are a CIC. Natasha was in a network of young entrepreneurs so in a way the charity world felt far away, so she wanted to build a business for profit but for good, so a bridge between the two.
Natasha’s previously school allowed her to go in and run workshops, which went really well and teachers there spoke to other teachers and grew by word of mouth. Natasha believes feedback is key to improving their service as it keeps their sessions and resources up to date. You have to give and go it and ensure you measure the social impact of your sessions. For example the earliest sessions they found out the parts that were working and that wasn't so they could improve the sessions.
Starting off and building a team, Natasha spent a lot of time building a community of young people online, for example, via their Instagram account they were able to connect with a lot of young people who were passionate and wanted to volunteer before the paid-for business took-off.
2. Why it’s important to have these conversions with young people
Bold Voices’ programmes have a preventative approach, it’s important to speak to all genders and representations.
The CIC finds student-led modelling of programmes effective because young people will change each other's behaviour and language, more so than teachers.
3. Speaking to all young people and communicating with youth-centred communication
Young men are worried about cancel-culture, so it’s important to have open conversations - if we know these conversations exist, we can then tackle them.
The team at Bold Voices have enjoyed working with younger age groups, such as year 11 because they have responded to the programme content differently. They’ve found the students less argumentative and more willing to absorb the content and their brain is still forming and they just want to learn.
They have also worked with primary school-aged children to speak about gender and gender stereotypes. As they grow older, they then will find it easier to have these conversations, so the team at Bold Voices believe that you can speak to young people about consent and gender from ‘day dot’.
As a top tip, Bold Voices suggest using pop culture and media to talk about a challenging topic with young people, it allows us to talk about things without getting personal.
This episode of Charity Chat has been brought to you by our platinum sponsor Work for Good. Work for Good believes everyone should be able to turn the work they do into good. Through their fundraising platform, they offer charities a way to engage and work with small businesses, including founders, owners and sole traders who want to make an impact for charities through their sales. To find out more, please visit workforgood.co.uk.
We hope you enjoy this week’s episode
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E146 - Diversifying our sector with Kemar Walford