Over the past few years, our Primary 6 pupils have been taking part in a social enterprise initiative as part of their engagement with the JASS Award. This began in 2018 with the creation of Bargarran’s Community Cafe, where we invited members of the local community and residents from local care homes to our school to our cafe.
The over arching aim of our social enterprise was to reduce loneliness and isolation in our local community.
In June 2019, we were delighted to receive a ‘change award’ from the Scottish Social Enterprise Academy in recognition of setting up this social enterprise.
Since COVID-19 restrictions, we have had to adapt our social enterprise. During 2020 we felt our aim of reducing loneliness and isolation in our local community was more pertinent than ever and so we sought ways to continue with this aim while keeping to restrictions. We began with our ‘pictures for care homes’ project where we provided encouraging pictures for residents in our local care homes during lockdown. Later that year, when back at school, we created ‘happiness boxes’ which contained a number of items to let our local community know we were thinking about them. These were sold and donated throughout our local community.
In recognition of our social enterprise efforts throughout the pandemic, we have received a second award from the Scottish Social Enterprise Academy, a ‘champions award’.
We look forward to continuing our social enterprise efforts this year.
