Connecting through our youth programmes
The Northern and Yorkshire Membership and Community Council has started 2026 with a number of our free workshops. We deliver a variety of workshops into primary, secondary and SEND schools.
We all learn from each other and at the Scunthorpe employability event we met with students who were interested in Central Co-op and what the co-operative stands for. They shared with us their ideas of what they might want to see us do for young people in the future. These ranged from pool, darts, creativity including art, photography to knitting and crochet. Our MCC member, Ian, also shared with them some financial information as he had already delivered Mind your Money and financial awareness sessions with the North Lindsey College. This was a great insight and the local networking group will take that information and work with other partners to see what we can achive.
The Mind your Money game is a great enabler to get secondary students in their last year to look at wider issues around finance. The game enables discussion around payslips, how tax is collected and used, what national insurance covers and areas around renting, credit cards and APR. It is also played with paper money as we are conscious of the amount of young people who just use a card and therefore not always seeing what they are spending and there are areas of discussion on how they save, support their mental wellbeing around finance, gambling apps and in particular how they prepare themselves for work. Our MCC members with their knowledge and insights support the students and we finish with some employabilty skills and learning what it is like working for Central Co-op.
Our Primary School workshops vary from Fairtrade & Ethical trading where students can learn about our commitment to Fairtrade and our Malawi project to understanding history and co-operative values. They particularly enjoy the chocolate tastings using their senses and designing posters or chocolate bars. This session includes the new World Builders game which looks at the Malawi project in more detail and how it delivers against the UN Sustainable Goals.
SEND Schools love our Savvy Shopping experience, where students can visit a local store and shop on a budget. They learn about portion sizes, the traffic light system, labelling and prices. Where we have a cafe, the students can help prepare their own drinks and then go into the food store to do their shopping challenge. They have to shop for 4 adults for breakfast, lunch and evening meal and then they scan all the products themselves at the till to see how close to their budget they are. The students find the workshop engaging and it gives them confidence to express themselves. Once finsished they can spend time on the shop floor doing tasks from shelve rotation and learning about deliveries and in the cafe they are able to speak to the members, clear tables and clean the areas. The whole experience is well received and we work with schools across our region.
If any school is interested in learning more than please email: member.community@centralcoop.co.uk.