David Allison is making a difference

17 Jul 2014

My aim is to inspire local young learners to attend university

I am a Reader in Pharmacy Education in the Manchester Pharmacy School and was the first member of my family to attend university. To date, my direct input to Social Responsibility has mainly focused on working with young learners of all ages from educationally and socioeconomically disadvantaged backgrounds in an attempt to encourage and inspire them into higher education.

Over the years I have been involved with a range of different activities, including the year 6 Pharmacy in Primary Schools (PIPS) programme which has been running since 2007, and stand-alone workshops such as “Chlamydia Awareness” aimed at year 11 pupils and “How Clean Are Your Hands” for all ages.  I also run a workshop for parents and carers on the affordability of university.

In addition, Fastbleep Pharmacy has recently been launched which comprises a trilogy of workshops aimed at years 8, 10 and 12 to not only introduce pharmacy as a potential career option but also help guide students through the university application process. A future development of this programme will be inclusion of a research experience day for year 12 pupils held at the University.

All of these hands-on activities have been extremely rewarding and have benefited enormously through the use of undergraduate ambassadors. Not only are they closer in age to the young learners but they themselves have a variety of life experiences that they can share, thereby showing that coming to university may not be as overwhelming or unattainable as it first appears.