Students help to clean up Dagenham church grounds

Barking & Dagenham College students clearing the grounds

Students from Barking & Dagenham College have helped a local church clean up their grounds.

The Public and Protective Services students volunteered to help the church with its conservation project which involved clearing and maintaining the site.

This is the seventh year that students from the College have volunteered on the project which was originally set up to provide the local community safe access to the church grounds and its wildlife areas.

Since then, the students have been involved each year to give the site an overhaul to keep the grounds in tip top shape.

Over a two week period, the 36 students spent their time clearing and preparing the churchyard, including the maintenance of 24 Commonwealth memorial war graves.

The volunteering was also an opportunity for the students to put into practice a lot of the skills and values they have been working on in their college lessons, such as teamwork, leadership and protecting and preserving the community.

Barking & Dagenham College student Samuel Hebden laying a remembrance cross on one of the commonwealth war graves

Barking & Dagenham College student, Artion Josan, from Rainham said: “I have learnt lots of new skills whilst helping the local community and will take these forward with me for my future career. It is especially satisfying when people come up to you and thank you for allowing them to see the graves where their loved ones can be remembered.”

Protective Services Lecturer at Barking & Dagenham College, Ryan Karrer added: “We are so proud of our students. They have worked incredibly hard to make sure the church grounds continue to be as accessible to visitors as possible and it looks great. The students really enjoyed the opportunity to help and I’m sure we’ll be back again next year.”