What We Do in the Midlands

Annual Day Out

Every year in the Midlands, KidsOut and Rotary take over 7,500 disadvantaged children on a magical day out – a staggering 163,104 children have had a special fun packed day out since the start of KidsOut. The biggest day out in the country happens at Drayton Manor Park, where this year over 5,000 disadvantaged children from the Birmingham area had a very special day that will have provided some happy childhood memories that will last a lifetime.

Toy Box

KidsOut provides a box of brand new toys when a child is re-housed as a result of domestic abuse, helping to bring stability and fun back into their lives when they need it most. We work with 42 Women’s Refuges in the Midlands, including 7 specifically in Birmingham. KidsOut works closely with Birmingham & Solihull Women’s Refuges. We have sent out 1115 toy boxes in the Midlands area and plan to grow this service year on year so that we can reach even more children in Birmingham who nothing to call their own.

Fun Days

We have provided fun days for over 4800 children from the Midlands which have included Halloween & Christmas parties, trips to Birmingham Aquarium, Alton Towers, Warwick Castle, Cinema & Drayton Manor Xmas event.

We will be continuing to take out over 3000 refuge children from the Midlands on Fun Days Out – something simple that many have missed out on, by offering theatre shows, Go Karting, Laserquest, theme parks and many more.

Thanks to Vantage, who are turning their showroom into a Halloween themed party venue for 50 children including DJ, entertainment, McDonalds & fun activities.

KidsOut will be hosting a Christmas Party at the Holiday Inn for 150 children from refuges in the city. Toys will be donated from the Giving Tree to provide gifts for every child at the party when they visit Santa.

2000 children will have the opportunity to visit an exclusive Drayton Manor Christmas event, where the park opens their gates to the children that KidsOut supports.  They will experience rides, visit Santaland, lunch and fireworks.   

World Stories

Overall, 37,577 children in Birmingham have benefitted from the World Stories project which is an online interactive resource.

Community volunteers in Birmingham wrote and recorded stories for children to enjoy in both English and their original language, helping with learning and cultural awareness. 

The stories were read and sound recorded by 3 generations at BBC Mailbox including Kamleish, her 90 year old mother and 17 year old daughter. Local DJ Sukhi Bart from BBC Asian Networks, also read.

Workshops

Multimedia Outreach – In conjuction with the Switch project Wolverhampton we have helped over 500 children through creative technology used to engage hard-to-reach young people that are at risk and not in education, employment or training.  Through KidsOut multimedia outreach work, we have returned over 200 young people back into main stream education.

We will be continuing to conduct workshops for refuge children in the Midlands to identify seriously at risk children in order to feed them into a thorough childhood Outreach programme.  Our next programme will enable children to produce their own music track, lyric writing or singing/rapping.  Other multimedia elements will include photography, graphics and IT use.