We enjoyed a fantastic week of events and activities to celebrate Leeds Learning Disability Week (14th - 20th June).

We raised awareness and promoted inclusion with the launch of our inspirational video, plus we explored peoples strengths and abilities across a variety of activities, to highlight the wonderfully neuro-diverse world we live in.

Sunshine Art Display

To kick off our week of celebrations, we created a giant sunshine art display at the historic Leeds Kirkgate Market, to shine a light on the talent and creativity of our service.

To make the display, each of our members and staff team customised their own mini sunshine to express their personality, and we added these together to build a giant tapestry of sunshine's.

The collage was proudly displayed throughout the duration of Learning Disability Week, and our members enjoyed visiting the market to see their artwork being enjoyed by the community.

Wellbeing Walk At Leeds Dock

Thanks to the Canal & River Trust, we were invited down to Leeds Dock to enjoy a wellbeing walk and explore the benefits of spending time by the waterways and accessing nature. We learnt about the work of the trust who look after the countries canals and rivers, and also enjoyed some mindfull time spotting nature and taking in the sights of Leeds Dock. 

We would like to say a big thank you to Sam and Liz for our guided tour! We look forward to helping the Canal & River Trust team coordinate an autism-friendly version of the Leeds Waterfront Festival in the summer.

BBQ-Bonanza

Our VACS bases made the most of the great weather by hosting their own super fun outdoor BBQ parties, with delicious food, fruity mocktails, fun and games.

We adorned our bases with handmade decorations and created a Spotify playlist with all our members favorite music. It's safe to say, it’s probably the most eclectic mix of songs you will hear this year! You can listen to our collection of songs on Spotify here: 

Listen To Our Spotify Playlist 

We were sad not to be able to invite everyone at home and in base, but we are hoping to hold a similar event for all our members once social distancing rules allow and we can bring everyone back together safely. 

Live Arts & Craft Tutorial

We develop and deliver a whole host of fun and engaging activities in our bases from arts & crafts, cooking, nature and gardening to wellbeing and lifeskills, and we wanted to share our passion online! 

So we hosted our own LIVE arts & craft tutorial and invited people to take part and follow along on Zoom. We showed people how to make their own Salt Dough to create summer-themed garden stakes and plant markers to jazz up plants for the summer!

It was the first time Sarah in our Activity Development team has delivered a virtual activity in this way; however, we were thrilled to receive such positive feedback and will definitely be running another tutorial soon. Watch this space!

The BIG Quiz

To close our week of celebrations, we hosted our BIG Quiz on Zoom. We linked our bases virtually and invited other organisation's who support local adults with Autism and Learning Disabilities.

We were lucky enough to be joined by LEEP1 Leeds and had a fantastic time testing our knowledge on a variety of trivia questions submitted by LAS members.

Competition Winners!

There were all sorts of activities and events taking place throughout the city to celebrate Leeds Learning Disability Week and the Through The Maze website was a great accessible way to find out what was going on. 

Congratulations to Michael who won first place in the People Matters Photography competition with his stunning shots of Flamborough Cliffs taken on his family holiday to Bridlington.

Plus a massive well done to Ben who came 2nd place in the Aspire CBS Bake Off Competition Savoury category with his homemade Bacon and Black pudding quiche. Both gents are thrilled with their certificates.a

And Finally...

Learning Disability Superheroes - The Movie! 

We launched our own inspirational video during Learning Disability Week, which features a number of our members and recognise's that we are all brilliant at something, no matter what barriers we face. 

If you haven't seen it yet, then your in for a treat! We hope you enjoy watching, just as much as we enjoyed making it.

Thanks to everyone that took part and helping make the week one to remember!

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