Northern Powergrid teaches students about vulnerability

Northern Powergrid’s “Watt a Community” project, created in association with the Ahead Partnership, returns for a second year to promote its priority services register and encourage local communities to support vulnerable people during power cuts.

As part of the initiative, groups of students from Bradford Forster Academy were given the task of designing a community event, including stalls from a range of community groups, support services, and charities, with at least 50 vulnerable people from the local community attending.

Northern Powergrid and the Ahead Partnership held a workshop at the school to help the children think about who in their community may be vulnerable, especially in the instance of events like a power cut. The students then pitched their events to a panel of volunteers from the electricity company.

The winners, Aisha Mehmood, Aleesha Moyo, Emma Runciman, and Leah Karim impressed the judges with their idea to host a “Sunday fun day”. The suggestion included the creation of a petting zoo for older people in the community, as well as music, entertainment, and refreshments to encourage as many people to attend as possible.

They will now start planning their event, with the opportunity to apply for up to £1,000 of funding from Northern Powergrid towards bringing their idea to life.

Siobhan Barton, Northern Powergrid’s head of stakeholder relations, said: “The winning group came up with a really original theme for their community event and our judges were very impressed. We know that their ‘Sunday fun day’ will be a great day for the local community and will help raise awareness of our priority services register.

“Whilst power cuts are rare, thanks to our investment in the electricity network, and for most simply an inconvenience, for someone who has a medical condition or equipment which relies on electricity, is unwell, disabled, elderly or has a very young family to look after, it could have a greater impact.

“This means that raising awareness of our priority services register and encouraging anyone who needs extra support to sign up is really important so we can reach out to the people who need us most if the lights go out.”

Rachel Murphy-Dawson, teacher at Bradford Forster Academy, added: “What a fantastic day. Students worked hard to create the best event for older people to enjoy. There was a lot of team work, leadership, co-operation and endurance throughout the day. Thank you so much.”