I decided to apply for the ngdp in my final year of university. The majority of my peers were applying for investment banking schemes, but I felt the public sector would allow me to develop a career with a positive impact on society, rather than just increasing profits. I was attracted by the slogan "real life, real work" and was interested in the range of opportunities NGDP grads had experienced. As I hadn't yet decided upon a specific profession, I was keen for the opportunity to try out a number of areas of work - something other graduate programmes didn't seem to offer. The NGDP has surpassed my expectations. At my host local authority, the London Borough of Newham, I was able to work on a wide range of projects, in a number of service areas, with increasing responsibility as I progressed through the programme.
My most challenging project was in the Newham Unit for the 2012 Games. The team were planning a summer of sporting activities, encouraging young people in the borough to get involved and try some new sports, while finding out about Newham’s involvement in the Games. I was tasked with leading on the planning and delivery of the last of these sports days, a Paralympic event. This was targeting young disabled people, giving them the chance to try out new sports and find out what sort of activities were available for them in the borough.
When I started, all I had was the venue – I was nervous about the enormity of planning such a large-scale, important event in only a few weeks. I started by making a week-by-week plan of what I needed to do. I researched a range of disability sports, speaking to organisations like Sport England. I found out some really interesting information. For example, many future Paralympic champions are currently able bodied people who have yet to become impaired, let alone even consider representing their country in the Paralympic Games.
I drew up a list of sports that could be accommodated by the venue and I discovered that transportation was one of the biggest barriers to participation. So I allocated a large proportion of the event budget to getting people there. In order to get a good turn out at the event, to ensure value for money, I widened the offer to boroughs across East London. In preparation, I worked at the events preceding mine, and recruited some extra volunteers to ensure I was free to assist with the activities. The event was very successful and had the largest turn out of all the summer sessions. Many able-bodied young people who had been to the previous events also turned up for the Paralympic event. It was really rewarding to see that the majority of them decided to stay and take part in some of the activities, like wheelchair basketball. It was great to see them broadening their minds about disability. Olympic Gold Medallist, Tessa Sanderson even came down to do some talent spotting, which got the young people very excited. It was great to see how all the planning in the office, resulted in an amazing day of sports that many young people enjoyed.