How support eased my pain after my brother died

Nevaeh, the Wales winner of the BBC Young Reporter Competition 2023-24, explains how grief affected her, and how youth work allowed her to start to live her life again.

I was 13 when my brother Levi passed away in a tragic accident in 2018.

I couldn’t believe it. I’d never lost anyone before. I was in real shock.

The grief left me with anxiety and depression. I couldn’t leave the house or go to school.

The youth worker I was referred to helped turn my pain into a positive power.

Now I’m an apprentice youth worker near my home in Cardiff, trying to make a difference to other people.

I remember it as just a blur. It was five years ago. My mum was downstairs, I heard her scream my older sister’s name and that lives in my head, it’s there the whole time.

Levi was like the dad figure that we’d never really had. He was protective and would do everything for his family. He’d walk into a room and the whole place would just light up with his energy.

I just felt so numb: a feeling I’d never had before.

I shut myself away from the world for a good couple of months. I didn’t speak to my friends and didn’t go to school. I didn’t want to communicate with anyone.

My school referred me for extra support. At the time I didn’t want to speak about it. I thought it’s not going to bring him back. I got a youth mentor who really helped and she showed me it was OK to speak about it and open up.

She took me away from the house where all the memories were. We’d do fun activities like bake to take my mind off things, or go on wellness walks. It wasn’t like a counselling session where it was face to face and you need to speak about it. If I didn’t want to speak about him, I didn’t have to. We’d talk about school or getting back to school or the next steps.

It was nice to take it away from that home life where it was so sad and everyone was grieving.

She helped me get back into school, which was a big thing for me. Having her there or at the end of the phone, my high anxiety would go.

I passed most of my GCSEs and I was proud of that, because I never thought I would.

I left school and came straight to work at Gabalfa Youth and Community Centre. It’s crazy to think that when I was 13, school wasn’t an option and I was so adamant I wasn’t going to go and there was no light at the end of the tunnel. For me to sit here now doing all my qualifications for youth work is amazing.

We might do cooking, football or arts and crafts. We recently had crime and consequences sessions. The area used to have a bad reputation and I wanted to turn that into a positive one. We told the young people facts they might not have known about the crimes in the area and they adored it.

I’ve started mentoring. I’ve worked with a young person who was really anxious, who wasn’t attending school at all. I thought: “That’s like me – I can help you.”

I ran cooking and arts and crafts sessions. We had a scale of their anxiety from one to five. If it was a five it was really good, and in a couple of sessions it was that.

You see the changes, and that young person is in education and enjoying it.

India, who is 13 and comes to the youth club regularly told me what she gets out of it.

“It really distracts me if I’m feeling low or it just helps me have more fun and get out of the house more,” she said. “It makes my day knowing I’ve had a good session and let it all out.”

Macey, who’s 11, said: “It helps me get stuff off my chest because it’s kind of hard to tell people, but here it feels safe.”

Sophia, also 11, has made new friends at the club ahead of changing schools this autumn.

“I think because there’s a lot of people here, it’s helped me with my social skills,” she said. “Before, if I went out I’d feel kind of anxious.”

I asked my manager Gareth Bendle how I’d changed since he first me: “You’ve grown in confidence massively,” he said.

“Utilising some of the things that you’ve been through yourself with the grief and the trauma, has impacted on other members of the community who’ve been through similar things; we’ve looked and turned that into a positive, helping young people in the community.”

I get up every morning saying I love my job. Lots of people in my work knew Levi as well. Youth work is fantastic because you have people going through the same as I did, and then you see them change.

I had no purpose before. Without the support, I wouldn’t have had a job, I wouldn’t have passed my GCSEs: it took me out of myself.

I’m not at the end of my journey. I still have sad days, but I want people who are going through grief to know that there’s always light at the end of the tunnel, even though I couldn’t  see it when I was going through it: you will get through it.

Levi wouldn’t have wanted me to be sad. He would have wanted me happy.

I know he would be so proud of me, even though it hurts and I’ve got a hole in my heart that will never be filled.

But I get up every day and I do it for him.