Millstreet.ie

Millstreet Youth Club would like to thank Elaine Hooper for all her hard work given much freely and generously.

Without Elaine there will not be a youth club in Millstreet Town.
Yours sincerely
Eileen Murphy and all at the club

Elaine Hooper Youth worker
Millstreet Youth Centre writes:

Started towards the end of 2002 and meets each Friday night in the Youth Centre from 8pm – 10pm.
Along with another local club in Dromtariffe, Millstreet Youth Club is part of the Kerry Diocesan Youth Service (KDYS). This means we can participate in all of the youth services activities which include youth games, matches, monthly discos, Youth Forum and skills training. The yout club season runs from Sept/Oct until April and finishes with a big celebration “Youth Day” in Killarney where all the clubs come together for a day of dance, drama, drumming, bands, arts and games workshops.

KDYS work with young people on the understanding that the service should aim to enable young people to gain for themselves the knowledge, attitude and skills necessary to meet their own and others developmental needs. We do this in many different ways such as having an accessible youth club and through a variety of projects. Because we believe that young people can, with the right opportunity and support, make a positive contribution to their communities, KDYS has helped develop and support many such initiatives in Millstreet often in association with others in the community such as the Community School, Canon O’Donovan Centre and Presentation Convent.

The training and support given to young people involved in these projects have produced some spectacular results such as the Tir Na Nog mural in the girls national school; the Aidan Burke memorial garden in the Youth Centre; two award – winning community play schemes in 2002 and 2003, an inter-generational dance project between Canon O’Donovan Centre and girls from the Presentation Convent; a Peer mentoring project with Millstreet Community School as well as the Youth Club.

There is a huge lack of resources for young people in many rural areas and we are lucky in Millstreet that someone somewhere had the vision and commitment to convert the old boy’s school into a youth centre. Over the years it has developed a community gym, an after-schools service and is well used by a variety of community groups for meetings and classes. It is also available for hire for children’s parties.

It is very important in youth work that all projects are supported by adults in the community and the youth club has a committee which includes both parents and student leaders and youth workers. Parents take an active role in supervision, support and fundraising for the club and this voluntary commitment is crucial to success.

Youth Club members are aged between 13-15 years. All out members are boys at present. Girls are very welcome and many attempts have been made to encourage them to join but not much success so far.

Older students are encouraged to become involved as youth leaders and they complete a six week KDYS Youth Empowerment Course to qualify. To date over 20 young people in Millstreet have completed this accredited course. The training offers students the opportunity to develop some important life skills in communication, group work, leadership, self esteem and assertiveness.

For the past 2 years the Youth Club has participated in a Peer Education Outdoor Activity summer camp where leaders have an opportunity to put their youth work skills into practice and support the younger members in participating in all of the activities which this year included abseiling, canoeing, caving and boogie-boarding in the Burren.

The student leaders we have at present are incredibly committed and have contributed enormously to the success of their club. They are John Fitzgerald, Con Dennehy, Connie Roche and David O’Sullivan. We are very pleased when this month one of them Connie Roche was an overall winner in the West Cork Garda Youth Award which he received in Balyvourney last week. A well-deserved award for Connie’s courage and commitment and a popular youth leader. Congratulations to him.

Another anchor of the club is Sean Mannix who is a trained youth worker and who has been with the club since the beginning. Sean plans to spend a year working and traveling in New Zealand in February 2005 so we had plan a big send-off for him as he will be badly missed.

I am doing the 2nd year of a Diploma in Non-Formal Guidance at UCC which roughly translated as a training to deliver drugs education in the community, which is interesting and I hope useful in future youth work.
That is us in a nutshell!!

We are really pleased to be asked to participate in Millstreet web experience and the plan is for further news and updates to be done by the young people themselves.

December 2004

More fun images to be added later this week, showing the various activities of the very successful youth club!!

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KDYS YOUTH EMPOWERMENT TRAINING

CASTLEISLAND

JANUARY 2005

I recently completed this programme along with 10 other young people from clubs in Cork and Kerry. The training was full of experience, ideas and knowledge about many aspects of life. It was also hard work and a lot of fun!

Before the course started I was a bit worried about what would be involved but once we were all introduced we talked about what we wanted to get from the course and we shared our anxieties which was reassuring.

The training was held on two Saturdays in Castleisland. The first day we did exercises around communication skills, leadership skills and the role of the Youth Worker in the community. In the second week we looked at organisational skills and programme planning; conflict in groups and ways of dealing with it. At the end of each session we had time to reflect on what we had done so far. We had time to exchange ideas and get to know each other.

Overall I gained a lot of new skills and ideas from this training. For instance, I became more confident in speaking out. By the end I wasn’t afraid to express my own ideas. I was able to think of new ideas and I felt empowered and encouraged to become a useful leader in my own community.

I recommend this training. No-one who does it will go back empty handed!

DAVID AWE
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April 2005

Jamie Hooper, Millstreet Youth Club Candidate, Dáil na Nog 2005 writes:

Dáil na nOg Elections

On the 16th of March, I attended the Comhairle na nóg in the Tralee Youth Centre.  This was an evening event where four speakers from three areas of Kerry had to speak for two minutes about two issues which affect Young People today, either Facilities for young people, or acohol and drug misuse.
From each area one candidate was to be elected by the other people there and there was also a “Wild Card” vote which I think the Jundges elected which could be from any area.
The people elected would then go to Dáil na nOg on the following Saturday in Dublin.  Two candidates from Gaeltacht areas had been pre-elected.
We each had to have an election slogan.  Mine was “Mol an óige agus tiocfidh si”
The judges included two people from Kerry who had gone there before, Fr Jerry Godly, Director of KDYS and a journalist from “Kerryman”.
I was one of the candidates to have to speak but first there was a social meeting in which we had Pizza and drinks in the Youth Café and then we were split into two groups to discuss and debate the topics.
In these groups the teenagers decided what we would like to see being done in our areas.  Ideas ranged from Drop-in-Centres to Swimming Pools and even a Roller-Disco.
Then came the time when we had to speak.  The Killarney group (my group) was first to speak, and I was third to speak.  I had never spoken in public before.  My speech was mainly about how the lack of good facilities for young people results in alcohol and substance abuse.  Well my turn came around after listening to two okay speeches.  I read it as best I could, but I hafe to habit of looking down at the sheet and not into the crowd.  When I had finishes Fr Godly congratulated me.
Next up was Shirley Somers from Killarney who did a brilliant speech not having it al written down and mostly in her head.  Then it was time for people from the other areas to vote on a ballot card which one from Killarney would go to Dublin.  I had a fear that my speech didn’t revolve around the issues enough and that all the others would be far more in depth than mine.  My fears were not realised however as candidate after candidate came to the microphone and talked about themselves for two minutes straight.
On and on about why they deserved to have a free trip to Dublin and I thought damn I didn’t sell myself enough. But then I thought sureley with speeches like that they don’t have a chance but one person frim each area had to be elected.
Then the results came out.
From my group, as predicted, Shirley Somers was elected, I was pleased because she had put a lot of work into it.
I was annoyed that the one other person who did speak about the issues did not get elected and I had hoped that if not me, he would get the “Wild Card” but it was neither.  Just another one of the people who spoke about himself got the “Wild Card”.
So I left the thing thoroughly disappointed but the man from the Kerryman did day he was happy that some people spoke about the issues.
I am not sure if I’ll try again next year but I suppose it can’t be hard to write a speech about myself, can it?

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January 2005

Hi

Just and update on what we have been up to at the youth club.  We have been busy since we came back from our Christmas break.  Every year KDYS organise inter club competitions.  We had two soccer teams, one under18 and under15.  We also have a quiz team and there is a chess and drafts day coming up.

All our members did us proud and a good time was had by all.  We also attended a disco held be Cordal Youth Club Co Kerry, which was a great night.  The next disco is being held by Dromtariffe Youth Club in March.  So we are really looking forward to that.

There was a training day held in Tralee.  Sox pf us went.  There were arts and crafts, computers, drama, out-door sports and co-operative games.  It was absolutely a fantastic day.

We learnt lots and I thought you might like to try some of the games. We had some laugh doing them.  ENJOY!!!!!!

EILEEN MURPHY

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