The Whithorn Trust

Supporting young people through the Whithorn ReBuild Schools Engagement Project

The two-year Whithorn ReBuild project involves working with non-attenders and vulnerable young people from the organisation’s local high school to enable them to sample opportunities in heritage construction skills, which are in nationally short supply: architectural and green woodworking, stone carving, working with lime, and stained glass.

The training opportunities were offered on-site by a charity partner, Whithorn ReBuild – a social enterprise spin-off from the Whithorn Trust – which recruits 18- to 25-year-olds from unemployment and offers in-work training in heritage skills.

The school pupils visit once per week, accompanied by youth workers, and are tutored by both time-served masons and carpenters and by the young trainees, providing peer-to-peer learning.

The work is undertaken on a number of derelict historic buildings which the trust or its partner have acquired, to provide training in a real-world heritage construction scenario with a full range of trades involved.

Prior to renovation, these buildings have been the subject of complaint in the community and their redevelopments are targeted towards positive community benefit, such as providing museum space, social housing or workshops.

The school pupils are educated not only in specialised skills, but also in the correct use of PPE and site safety in an environment with positive role models. The aim of the project is to engage young people with heritage through skills which have been practised on the Whithorn site for over a thousand years, and ultimately the goal is to offer accredited learning to all those participating through SQA accreditation.

Around 12 to 14 high school pupils attended weekly for the first year. The pupils are selected by the school and are non-attenders or those with additional challenges, such as ADHD or social anxiety, who have not thrived in the classroom.

The results of offering young people the opportunity to work with their hands in an adult environment, facing challenging tasks that require focus and skill, have been remarkable.

One attendee, TJ, had not attended school for two years, barely leaving his bedroom and struggling to engage with youth workers. He came to the project with a cousin and continued to attend, helping to put in foundations for the new workshop.

Another had lost his father under tragic circumstances and is being fostered – he now attends on a work placement and has a place on a construction course at college. Another, aged 15, aspires to become a stone carver.

Teachers have also noted improvement in the commitment of the chosen pupils to the rest of the school curriculum.

For the 18- to 25-year-olds employed through the social enterprise, the programme has enabled them to develop their communication skills as they tutor pupils only a few years younger than themselves.

The end of the first year of the project was marked by a series of films, created by high school pupils who were mentored by a professional film crew, which linked the artefacts in the Whithorn collection to the skills being learnt on-site today.

The film series was entitled “A history of Scotland in 10 Whithorn objects” and featured both trainees and pupils using heritage methods to work with wood, stone, plaster and glass. The films are being distributed to schools as an introduction to archaeology, and one of the young filmmakers signed up to embark upon a university degree in film in autumn 2023.

In November 2023, Whithorn ReBuild won the Best Small Museum Project award at the Museums Change Lives Awards 2023.