\u201cI felt youth work was what I was made for,\u201d says Rachel. \u201cI now had a clear direction, but it felt like no clear path. I had no experience or qualifications. I needed to find a way to continue studying whilst working and raising a child.\u201d<\/p>\n
It was during a chance encounter on the bus that the OU penny dropped.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019d just begun volunteering in the church youth group when a lady on the bus told me that you could do an OU degree without A levels, and that her sister was a youth worker and did a youth work degree. That\u2019s when I realised; I needed the OU to get me here.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Rachel enrolled to study Youth Work with the OU and was quickly able to start putting her learning into practice through her campaigning work.<\/p>\n
The passion to tackle food poverty\u00a0<\/strong><\/h3>\n
The first lockdown of the pandemic meant that youth work in its usual face-to-face format could not continue. Rachel was also furloughed from her day job in sales, which meant more time to volunteer.<\/p>\n
The result? She developed an online cooking project delivering food, providing doorstep activities and over 150 weekly ingredient packs to families vulnerable to hunger. It would become the Cherry Tree Project – a youth-led, community-loving group dedicated to supporting families struggling with food poverty.<\/p>\n
Amazingly, Rachel managed to meet the commitments of this award-winning project alongside the demands of the final work-based module of her degree.<\/p>\n
\u2018<\/strong>The tutors have always got me through\u2019<\/strong><\/h3>\n
But her OU journey hadn’t all been easy, as Rachel explains: \u201cThere were some major life events during the course of my studies. Moving home, changing job, Covid, Dad passing, husband leaving, totally changing jobs, albeit to do what I love full time. I don\u2019t think my friends and family thought I\u2019d complete this degree. I\u2019m five and a half years in though, so I think the odds are good!\u201d<\/p>\n
To any student who may be struggling on their course, Rachel has this advice: \u201cIf you\u2019re thinking of quitting, ring your tutor first! I\u2019ve emailed to quit once and considered it many times and the tutors have always got me through. Are all the tutors supportive? 100%. Especially my current tutor, Kate Breeze. I couldn\u2019t have done it without her support.\u201d<\/p>\n
Finding a community of like-minded learners<\/strong><\/h3>\n
Rachel also credits her fellow students\u2019 for their support. \u201cOne of the highlights of my time studying with the OU was the day school in Birmingham. We met as a whole study group and it was great to be around people with the same passions as me. They were awesome, inspirational people.\u201d<\/p>\n
She even found a study partner. \u201cI have a \u2018study sister\u2019, Charlene, who is now one of my closest friends and an amazing woman. We\u2019ve studied together since day one, although we\u2019ve only met face to face once due to COVID.\u201d<\/p>\n
Rachel now divides her time between a job she loves in youth work, and running the food provisions.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy plan is to create a sustainable organisation run by its young people and supported and owned by its community. I want to grow the team so we can reach even more people.<\/p>\n
\u2018You can change the world\u2019<\/strong><\/h3>\n
Rachel and volunteers delivering food provisions<\/p><\/div>\n
\u201cI am so proud of every single one of our young volunteers, because together we\u2019ve achieved so much this past year. I\u2019ve told them, \u2018Don\u2019t let anyone think less of you because you\u2019re young, because I know you and know that all of you have the ability to change the world with your courage, your creativity, your spark and most importantly, your heart!\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
Rachel could easily have been addressing her younger self, whose teachers wrote her off as a missed opportunity. Because little did she know then, but the future Rachel would go on to change more than perceptions; she\u2019d change people\u2019s lives.<\/p>\n
\u2018None of this would have been possible without the OU\u2019<\/strong><\/h3>\n
Through 2021, the Cherry Tree Project continued to support the local community, providing twice weekly food provisions and supporting 150 families every school holiday. It ended the year by supplying just shy of 2000 Christmas dinners.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat a year,\u201d says Rachel. \u201cNone of this would have been possible without the OU and what I\u2019ve learned.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cMy message to anyone thinking about studying with the OU would be, \u2018Do it.\u2019 Not only have doors opened for me career wise but I\u2019m also happier, more passionate and more confident. I now know my worth. I never felt like people had the highest expectations for me, but now I\u2019ve proved it to myself as well as everyone else.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
You can find out more about the Cherry Tree Project by visiting the Facebook page here<\/a>.<\/p>\n
The OU Youth Work degree is being discontinued but you can learn more about a variety of courses, including Youth and Childhood Studies<\/a> and Youth Justice modules<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
When 39-year-old Rachel Bresnahan from Stockport isn\u2019t studying towards her Open University BA (Hons) Degree in Youth Work, she\u2019s out tackling food poverty in her local community. Here, she takes a brief pause to share her story. \u201cI love my community,\u201d says Rachel. \u201cI grew up here in Cherry Tree, Romiley. As the council estate […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":20452,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[862,1525,1640,1643,2146],"class_list":["post-20451","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-student-stories","tag-faculty-of-wels","tag-news-home","tag-ou-home","tag-ou-news","tag-students"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20451","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20451"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20451\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20452"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20451"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20451"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20451"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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