Our Projects
A group of children in a churchyard – taking part in the South Humber Bank Wildlife and People project

Case Study - Town and Gown 

Programme: Your Heritage 
Applicant: Red2Green 
Grant awarded: £25,000 
Project length: One year 

Town and Gown - printable (MS Word, 800KB) 

Summary

Red2Green is a registered charity which runs projects across Cambridgeshire providing leisure, educational and work opportunities for over 600 people with a wide range of disabilities, including mental health problems, learning disabilities, sensory and communication impairments and physical disabilities. Their aim is to raise awareness of the potential of disabled people to make a positive and valuable contribution to society. Following a successful Awards for All project they used a Young Roots grant to enable a group of young students with mental health problems to discover the history of the converted barn into which Red2Green had recently moved. The Town and Gown project enabled young people with Asperger Syndrome to learn about the influence of Cambridge University on the town and the sometimes contrasting experiences of students and the local people in relation to money, entertainment, food, clothing, housing, education and health.

The aims of the project

  • To enable young people attending Red2Green's Aspirations programme (for those with autistic spectrum conditions) to investigate the influence that "Town" and "Gown" had on each other in the city of Cambridge.
  • To trace the history of the University from the 13th century to modern times including specific aspects of this history such as the position of women at the University.
  • To look at the causes of ill feeling between the city and the university, but also how one has supported the other in terms of work opportunities and culture.
  • To present the findings through practical demonstrations, displays and web based information.

Benefits for heritage

  • The development of a timeline of the growth of the university from the times of Peterhouse in 1284 to New Hall's change of name to Murray Edwards in 2008.
  • Research into who could attend the university, when women were able to gain formal qualifications, and when colleges became mixed sex.
  • Research the diversity of people who had attended or worked at the university and then settled in Cambridge and their influence on the variety of restaurants in the city which has resulted in a diverse and colourful culture.

Benefits for people

  • The project enabled people with disabilities to learn new skills, gain confidence and self-esteem.
  • Staff and volunteers gained the opportunity to support the Aspirations learners to work together, a task which many find very difficult.
  • The participants have learned about their local community, how it developed into the exciting place that they now live in. They have visited new places of interest and have gained confidence in using public transport to make these visits.
  • To broaden their learning they took part in an archaeological dig near at which they found pieces of pottery dating from 150 years to over 600 years ago.

Lessons learnt

  • To help the young people engage in the project it had to be relevant to their day to day lives and their local area.
  • One successful heritage project sows the seeds for the next.  Through studying the converted barn in which they learn, the young people wanted to learn more about the village in which Red2Green is based, from that they wanted to know more about Cambridge and then, in their latest HLF project, about their own place in history by studying their family trees.

Long term benefits

  • The project has been so successful that some learners have said they would like to continue their studies to discover their family trees to see if their ancestors came to Cambridge from elsewhere.
  • The young people developed their ability to work together, formed friendships, which are crucial but sometimes difficult to come by for this client group, and took part in activities they had not tried before building their confidence to try new things.
  • Documents and artefacts helped the young people ‘see’ the history because people with Asperger syndrome find it difficult to imagine things they have not experienced.

The budget

Main Project Costs £ Funding £
 Staff costs  21,300  Other grants/cash   7,283
 Activity costs   9,800  Non-cash contributions   2,000
     HLF grant (73%)  25,000
     Total costs £34,283 


Young people carry out some research on the Internet  

Research on the internet  

Sector

Cultures and Memories 

Activity

Learning