BLESST Centre Building Community Relationships & Research
The aim of the project was to engage with communities in local wards to try to understand their needs around access to health screening, generate relevant research projects to develop a local impact in the future, and enable communities to inform the health department such as the Villa Vision Project, of ways to address their needs while looking to develop routes to communicate for future engagement. BLESST saw this as an important part to support our community relationships and community learning with others and research where we share and learn from each other through participation on a levelled ground of meaningful engagement. We further supported the campaign by engagement in helping to create and capture the key themes from the community in this short film documentary. ​
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YMCA Young People Mental Health Awareness Stories
BLESST support young people by giving young people a platform to sharing there lived experiences of mental health in our BLESST centre digital recording studio, using story telling and music as the tool which resulted in young people creating a podcast on mental health.
BLESST Digital Tycoon
Street Grime
The Street Grime project is a collaborative scientific initiative between the University of Birmingham and the community organisation, BLESST YLAB youth leaders investigate air quality in urban areas.
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Local youth participate in genuine research by using cotton swabs and deionised water to collect dust and metallic particles from lamp posts across the city.
These samples are analysed in a university laboratory using a magnetic susceptibility bridge to measure iron concentration, which serves as a proxy for pollution levels from vehicle exhaust and brake pads.
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The programme aims to provide young people with direct exposure to higher education while generating new data on the distribution of pollutants throughout Birmingham. Results indicate that pollution levels often correlate with industrial areas and wind patterns, offering participants a first hand view of the environmental health of their neighbourhoods.
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By treating students as equal researchers alongside PhD candidates, the project demystifies the scientific process and encourages future interest in environmental science.