People, Heritage and Nature.
The object of the organisation is to carry on activities which benefit the community and in particular (without limitation) to provide benefit to disadvantaged communities across Leeds City Region particularly by using navigable waterways as the catalyst for engaging individuals from those communities to improve their health and well-being, education and employment opportunities.
Operating from Leeds Lock Keepers House adjacent to the Royal Armouries Museum, Canal Connections uses the therapeutic potential of the region’s post-industrial, navigable waterways environment to engage people in a range of positive activities that help improve individual, social and environmental health and wellbeing by generating, four intrinsic rewards in individuals; their sense of personal meaning, choice, competence and progression….and it all starts with a canal boat trip!
Our work has shown that even from a very low level of knowledge, understanding orengagement in their local heritage, by introducing young people to a range of creativeopportunities in informal, but regular, bite-size chunks, they respond positively to thefour intrinsic rewards that inspire engagement:
- sense of meaningfulness – feeling that you are on a path that means something, givingyou a strong sense of purpose and direction
- sense of choice – you feel ownership in your work and responsible for making it work
- sense of competence – you feel satisfaction, pride or even artistry in how well youhandle the activities
- sense of progress – you see convincing signs that things are working out, giving youconfidence in the choices you have made and in the future.
Through this creative process, their sense of wellbeing grows.
