Athy Youth Project
Who We Are
In essence we support young people to build their capacity in order to reach their full potential through working on informal educational programmes. These programmes provide challenges which can give them valuable life experience in a safe supportive and fun environment.
These programs can address or explore any aspect of their lives or society and can be run through a variety of activities, tools and interactions
And as part of these programmes a cyclical planning, completion and evaluation enables young people to identify learning from the programme and influence their future planning. Young People are involved at every step of this process. They decide what they want to with staff, they participate, attend and then evaluate on how they feel the experience was and offer recommendations for future sessions.
What we do
As a voluntary youth led project the activities are very much led by the groups. However as issues or themes arise through regular contact we can tailor aspects of a program to meet those needs through another vehicle.
For example young people can address their need or challenge themselves through programs designed to encourage them to be responsible for their own actions and be self directed in their own goals.
This could take the form of an existing informal education program addressing a need such as drug or sexual health awareness or alternatively managing peer relationships through a 6 week community art course.
As we base our work on the long term relationships much or the informal experiential learning we facilitate depends on the trust we have established with young people.
In order to successfully run these programmes we have improved the co-operation and communication within the town between ourselves and local agencies and schools.
What we offer
The projects’ main methods are personal and social development through group work linked with promoting awareness of rights and responsibilities, and empowering young people to advocate for those rights.
The programmes we run must have an element of challenge within them in order for participants to learn from experience and to apply that learning.
Whether it’s organising a concert, fund-raising or an outdoor expedition, we aim to involve the young people in every aspect of the process; if possible, the young people lead up the entire programme supported by staff.
