Past Projects

ROC has been involved in many projects that have run for a number of years before being developed into new programs and ideas.  These projects lay much of the ground work for future projects that we would like to launch, so please look through these past projects:

Remix

On The Edge

On The Edge was a kids club developed and run within the westcourt area for over 4 years.  It was based upon a model from Brooklyn New York where the louder, sillier, messier and crazier THE BETTER!  Each Friday night from 6:30-7:30 we would play games, competitions, sing, dance and entertain upto 80 kids at a time before teaching a simple message and sending all the kids who behaved well off home with a reward (sweets of course)!  These events was staffed by a committed team of 15 volunteers who turned out each week to show that they cared about their community.

All the children who came along to On The Edge also received a weekly home visit, whatever the weather, to check that they were doing ok, that there weren't any problems and just touch base with the families.  These visits often broke down barriers and helped the kids feel part of the club.

In 2004 On The Edge was superseeded by On The Edge In School (OTEIS) which took the basic format of the friday club and targeted the message specifically for citizenship training.  These assemblies now impact in excess of 3000 children per term.

We no longer run On The Edge for various reasons, but we are developing projects that can make use of the skills that we have acummulated including running extended school day provision for primary school clusters using On The Edge resources along with dance, self image groups and acting skills.

TW Nightlife

TW ran as a youthclub providing opportunities for 15-21's to relax, chat, watch music video's, play pool, table tennis and grab something to eat at the 'Gobbles' tuck shop.  TW staff were trained in drug awareness and self defense to help them deal with troubled teens who woudl occasionally attempt to disrupt the club, allowing even these youths to have a positive experience of TW.

TW ran for 2 years catering for the youth of the Northcourt and Westcourt estates, it reduced its provision and eventually closed once Kent Educatioon and Libraries converted the former Northcourt School into a community facility.

Community Worker

The communities where ROC started it's work have many difficulties and socio-economic problems as illustrated by their scores in the Department of the Enviroment 2000 Indicies of Deprivation of 35.75 and 38.65 for Westcourt and Riverside (including the Northcourt estate) wards.  As a result ROC housed a community worker on the Northcourt Estate with the assisteance of GBC's Housing Department for 3 years.  During this time ROC worked with the Northcourt Action Group (NAG) to produce a comprehensive survey of 57% of the households to discover peoples perceptions of the estate and ideas on how to solve those problems.  This work was undertaken to  drew up and implemented an action plan to address the concerns and issues raised.  The survey summery and full report are avaliable below:

• Northcourt Survey Summary
• Northcourt Survey Full Report

ROC worked to implement the NAG Action Plan which included the instigation of an estate wide residents association to enable residents to speak face to face with police and GBC to tell them what the issues were and who was behind it.  The Northcourt Residents Association (NRA) was formed from a group of 15 people from accross the estate who cared about the situatrion outside their front door.  The NRA attended meetings of NAG and also made a point of honouring the local fire and rescue service which came under attack several times whilst attempting to extinguish rubbish fires on the estate.

ROC was also actively involved in the homezone initiative that saw approx £600,000 of physical investment in the Northcourt estate.  All of the £600,000 had to be spent in conjunction with residents and to fulfil residents critera, ROC served by supporting this initiative and carrying out occasional consultation to establish the collective opinion of residents on different designs.

During this time the community worker developed close ties to the Grand Project, Denton Community Forum, Westcourt Community Forum, Gravesham Borough Council, Westcourt Primary school and Northcourt Primary school (which closed in 2003).  This work saw ROC involved in various summer fete's and activities and often present in local schools, serving as a Governor at Westcourt Primary school.