23rd March 2025 marks five years since the first COVID-19 lockdown, an anniversary that also coincides with HideOut Youth Zone receiving the keys to its building.
In 2024, we collaborated with the Science and Industry Museum to produce a video which highlighted young people’s reflections on the pandemic and their hopes for the future. Led by eight of our remarkable members, this project provided a platform for their voices to be heard. The video was featured in the Injecting Hope exhibition, offering visitors a powerful insight into their experiences.
To explore the lasting effects of the pandemic, we spoke with some of our Senior members about how COVID-19 impacted their lives and the challenges they continue to face today. They also shared their experiences of how HideOut Youth Zone provided crucial support throughout the lockdowns.
Erin
“The pandemic played a huge role in my life. I suffered from a lack of control when it came to my emotions and the shortage of social settings made that extremely difficult. As well as having emotional troubles, I was also diagnosed with a life changing health condition which made the pandemic a hard time for me.
Before the lockdown happened, I was involved in a dance club where we would train at our dance facility and travelled the UK to compete against other dance teams, having had to social distance this was obviously a challenge for us! So instead we would train at the same facility under different circumstances, for example, we would wear face masks for our 2 hour sessions and we would social distance from each other. On top of attending a dance club, I also attended HideOut youth zone, where we would have our own friendship bubbles with certain staff and during the week, we were given a time slot and day to come and take part in what the Youth Zone had to offer!
Additionally to having sessions, we also got the chance to talk 1 on 1 to a trusted adult in a safe space, this gave us the opportunity to express how we felt, not only about the pandemic but all of our other issues that we faced during lockdown. This was beneficial as I also had challenges within school. I believe that everybody should have had access to a youth service such as HideOut as they truly did support me through these difficult times!”
Max
“Being locked inside during the 2020 Covid times was definitely really hard for me and my family. My sister has OCD and my brother has anxiety, therefore my brother wanted to go outside in moments of stress during lockdown and my sister was so conscious about the germs and the virus going around, meaning she wanted everybody inside, which definitely created issues and tension.
My grandad also had a sister that was unwell and unfortunately passed away during Covid times and he couldn’t see her in the hospital due to the restrictions, which was really hard on the family as we are all really close and support each other when needed, so it was a massive change to not be able to see each other, especially when we was ill.
HideOut has also definitely helped me with my music from when I started, which was just after the Covid era, helping me, always supporting me, and helping me make my name ‘EssTheRapper’ and release and perform at various HideOut events.
As for my friends, during this time I was supposed to be in Year 9, therefore I missed my work experience and missed a lot of time in school with my friends, which growing up is time I believe is very valuable.”
Jen
“Overall, the pandemic made it so that I missed several years in high school, resulting in me missing out on Years 8, 9 and a large amount of year 10. The fact that I missed a large portion of my education meant that when It came to things like exams, I didn’t feel like I was doing as well as I could because I was missing a big portion of the information needed for the vast majority of the tests I had to sit.
When it came to work and training opportunities, I didn’t have as many options as I would have liked for work experience placements. The pandemic limited the information base that I had available to me, making it hard to transition and go on to do my GCSEs.
One benefit I found that came from the pandemic was my ability to recognise the different career roles there are and the different job roles they carried out in running my local area. However, overall I appreciated the beneficial and well-deserved rest break that came with the pandemic despite all the challenges that it came with.”
Leighton
“The Covid Pandemic started at the end of Year 6 for me. I am now in Year 11 and I’m going to be doing GCSEs in a couple of weeks.
In my perspective, Covid has impacted me throughout education, as we had to go onto online learning through Microsoft Teams. This was a struggle for me as I could not learn from online as I am more of a practical person, and I have to see things in front of me.
The pandemic has impacted my friendships and family as I could not see people who I wanted to see due to the spreading of the virus. I had lost a lot of relationships with people due to not speaking with them. Although we could use apps such as social media, it was still not good enough to keep a close relationship with family or friends.
The pandemic has affected my mental health and physical health as we had to stay inside for a long period of time and I was more of an outside exploring person, so for me, it was a traumatic time to stay inside.
From my physical side, I am a sporty person who loved to run and play football. I lost my ability and my confidence through these times but over time I was able to gain the confidence back and get back into my favourite sports.
The pandemic has impacted my engagement as I didn’t have much entertainment to do at home as we had to stay inside but over time, we were able to be in small bubbles of people so in my opinion, HideOut Youth Zone was able to put a positive to this so that young people can do entertainment and not be stuck at home.
I hope for the future to be in the football industry, such as being a coach, or the music side that is music producing and doing other productive things in the industry.”
Xanté
“Hi, I’m Xanté and I’m 15 now. I was 10 when the pandemic hit. Some people see the pandemic as the worst period of their lives, but for me, it was the opposite. It allowed me to grow as a person and unlock my passion for baking, something I now do regularly at HideOut Youth Zone. The extra time also helped me mentally mature as I had the chance to educate myself on things other than schoolwork.
During lockdown, my main goal was to connect with my body. I began exercising daily with Joe Wicks’ workouts and learned about macros, calories, and how to fuel my body better. It was a period of self-improvement and physical growth.
Spending more time with my family brought us closer. Though some days were repetitive, my mum always found a way to keep things interesting or teach us something new. As strange as it may sound, I’m grateful for the lockdown, as it helped me mature and gain knowledge I wouldn’t have otherwise.”
Sionah
“The pandemic affected my education because I missed out on doing my SATs, so when I moved to high school I had to do a lot of tests. The pandemic really made me rethink my future career and what my goal is since I want to go and do dance. Before Covid, I had a clear idea of what I wanted to do, which was to go to a dance school after high school but all the time I spent at home made me question myself and if that was really the right path to go down. After the pandemic, it made me realise that dance is a good path to go down as a second option and that I should get a job such as an orthodontist.
The pandemic also affected my education because I didn’t have my teachers to help me in real time. Learning was hard as I had to do it online. This didn’t help me boost my scores in tests so I missed out on a massive chunk of learning, then when we went back to school, I didn’t know anything so I began to be behind in all my classes which affected me mentally. To overcome this, I had to use my break times to catch up on past learning and lessons instead of hanging out with my friends, which also affected me mentally as I wanted to be outside enjoying myself with my friends.”
James
“The pandemic for me was a wave of rollercoasters. There were some absolutely amazing times, and I also think it was a great opportunity to actually find out who I was and I think being behind the same 4 walls for a year definitely helped with that.
But then again, I also had a great loss at the start of 2021 (Not Covid) which shattered me, but I soon built myself up again. I think job wise, it was amazing, coming out of lockdown brought my first ever job as an actor which is my dream. I think it has put the industry in a bit of a sticky situation. As usually auditions would’ve been face to face, now they’re all on videos which in my opinion isn’t the best, but we carry on and smash it anyways!!”
Anonymous
“I feel the pandemic really changed my perspective of life. I need extra support with school as I don’t understand it as well as other kids my age, and I feel like I’ve had a very bad downfall with my learning abilities. I never really had a clear idea of what I wanted to do as I was older. It also lost me a lot of opportunities as I really enjoy sports, such as football, and it was very hard to get in a team for it which made me kind of sad as I knew I had a lot of potential.
The pandemic definitely affected my mental health more than my physical health as I had this era of feeling really down about myself and the only people who were able to help me with my feelings were my friends and grandpa, and my grandpa ended up not surviving the Covid Virus and it was very hard to see my friends as I didn’t want to end up in bad conditions like how I saw all over the internet. I was basically glued to my phone which ruined my childhood a bit, as I wanted to be outside but I couldn’t. It was very hard for me, especially because I have a lot of energy that I wanted to waste outside playing games but just couldn’t, that also kind of had an impact on my physical health as I didn’t really get to do anything at home. I would just sleep, eat, and repeat.
I felt really unconscious in my body which wasn’t really a worry for me at a younger age, but it hurt mentally when I got older as I’m still on a weight loss journey. I had a bad engagement with talking to people after not seeing anyone for a while and because of that, I deal with stage fright and I’m just shy in general at the start of meeting people. It got to a point where I have panic attacks when speaking to people I’m not familiar with.
I found out about HideOut when it was Covid and I wanted to go as I would finally be able to speak to people. At the time of Covid, we had to pick one area we wanted to do and we weren’t allowed in other spaces. This helped a bit but I wanted to explore with more kids. The pandemic affected many of my hopes, especially seeing my grandpa as he lives in another country and most of my relatives live abroad and I didn’t get to see them.
My aspiration for the future is to get back on track with everything. I missed out on having the football team, speaking more to my family, thinking about jobs I want to do and to grieve my grandpa with my family.”
