AYE enews - Summer 2020
Meet Thomas, our new Director
In April this year, we said goodbye to Shane Whelehan, who left us to work for the Quaker Service, a charity that supports people through difficult times. We were sad to see Shane leave, and we wish him the very best in his new role.
We are delighted that Thomas Turley has joined us as our new Director. As former leader in charge at Ardoyne Youth Club, Thomas has many years of experience in the sector and is very familiar with our work. He's hit the ground running in challenging times!
You can find out more about Thomas here. And you can contact him at: thomas@ardoyne.org
Children of Lockdown
 A writing competition for children and young adults
with Paul McVeigh, author of The Good Son
During lockdown, Paul McVeigh read extracts of 'The Good Son', his novel about growing up in Ardoyne in the 1980s, for Ardoyne Youth Enterprise. Watch them here: Paul McVeigh - readings for Ardoyne Youth Enterprise
Now, Paul has partnered with us again, to run a writing competition for children and young people in greater North Belfast.
Who can enter - 3 categories
- under 12 - story no longer than 500 words
- 12 to 15 - story no longer than 750 words
- 16 to 24 - story no longer than 1,000 words
Deadline - Sunday 27 September, 5pm.
How - email story with name, age, address to communication@ardoyne.org
Exciting prizes: readings by Paul for your school or group, No Alibis book tokens, fun days out etc.
More details here: www.ardoyne.org/children-of-lockdown
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Guide to Covid 19 services: impressive community response in North Belfast
We are very proud of the impressive response from community groups throughout North Belfast to the Covid 19 crisis, and we were delighted to contribute a guide to Covid 19 services.
We produced an online version on our website www.ardoyne.org, and an edited version published in partnership with North Belfast Advice Partnership.
Groups across Ardoyne, Marrowbone, Ballysillan, Woodvale, Oldpark and beyond have worked tirelessly together to provide food parcels, hot meals, help with shopping, medicine collections, advice and moral support to vulnerable people and those who were shielding, and numerous initiatives to keep community spirits up.
Thanks to Belfast City Council and NBSGRP for support for this project.
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Developing new training strategies: OCN courses online
Adapting to the 'new normal' has presented us with interesting challenges. When lockdown started, we adapted our two ongoing OCNNI courses so they could continue online.
Congratulations to the young people from Innov8 at Ardoyne Youth Club who completed the Mental Health Awareness Certificate in these challenging circumstances.
We have two ongoing online courses (Youth Work Level 2 award and Mental Health Awareness Level 2) and are planning a new Autumn programme of courses to offer our young people and partner organisations, blending online and socially distanced learning.
This programme is run with support from Community Council through NBSGRP.
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Youth work in lockdown and beyond
Youth outreach and summer interventions
 
During lockdown, our face to face programmes had to stop but we continued to provide online and phone support to young people. In July, our youth outreach team was able to restart its outreach detached work round the streets and parks of Ardoyne and Marrowbone and summer intervention trips, with support from the Education Authority. We are coordinating our outreach interventions with partners at Ardoyne Youth Club and John Paul II Youth Club.
Highlights so far include our online girls group which ran during lockdown, online mentoring and engagement with young men through gaming, socially distanced summer intervention trips to the Antrim Coast and VR experience, football in Bonehills and many good conversations with young people in the area about positive choices, mental health and wellbeing, and opportunities to train and study in this difficult year for young people.
If you would like to refer a young person or talk to our outreach team, contact Fionnuala on our Facebook, Twitter or Instagram accounts, or email youth@ardoyne.org.
Keeping young people's spirits up: sunflower challenge, hula hoop challenge, lockdown talent show
Keeping young people's spirits up has been an important task this year, and we are very impressed by the creative initiatives of local youth and community organisations, challenging young people to stay fit and active, take care of their mental health and support each other.
Some of our own efforts include a successful Lockdown Talent online competition, which produced beautiful and entertaining songs, music, comedy, artwork, dance. You can see the young people's videos on our Facebook page.
We joined forces with North Belfast Advice Partnership, Ardoyne Association and Ligoniel Association to produce a sunflower challenge for families and hula hoop challenge for children, both of which were roaring successes, with hundreds of growing kits and hoops distributed through street reps. The sunflowers are generating lively and friendly neighbourly competition on Ardoyne Association's Facebook page. The competition deadline has been extended to 27 August.
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Welcoming Newcomers: Small Worlds workshops
In partnership with Belfast Friendship Club, we continue to offer Small Worlds workshops to local youth and community groups, where they can experience cultural diversity and hear first hand about people's stories of asylum and migration.
This year we've added two new options: as well as the usual Small Worlds workshop, we can offer 'A Taste of South Africa' and 'A Taste of Sri Lanka' where participants can have an in-depth discussion with one host about his culture and experience of seeking asylum. We are currently running these workshops online, and will offer socially distanced workshops as soon as it is safe to do so.
So far this Spring and Summer, we're hosted workshops for R-City youth, Ardoyne Youth Club staff and Start 360's Futures Project. Thanks to Community Relations Council NBSGRP programme for support for this project.
If you would like a workshop for your group, contact catherine@ardoyne.org
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Wear yer mask campaign
   
We're currently running a 'Wear yer Mask in the Shaps' social media campaign to keep young people aware of the need to keep themselves and their community safe.
If you would like to participate, send a photo to catherine@ardoyne.org
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Sharing our expertise
DfC minister visits Ardoyne
Department for Communities Carál Ní Chuilín visited Ardoyne Youth Enterprise in July, along with North Belfast MP John Finucane, to discuss youth and community development work and opportunities for the area.
North Belfast young people share their experience with UMASS students and staff
We facilitated a conversation where young people from Ardoyne, Lower Shankill and Cliftonville shared their experiences of growing up as young people in North Belfast with staff and students from University of Massachusetts peace studies summer school.
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Member news
Job offer: senior youth worker at Marrowbone Community Hub
Marrowbone Community Hub is recruiting a Youth Worker. More information on Community NI: www.communityni.org/job/senior-youth-worker-marrowbone-community-association
Ardbone Fest 23 to 29 August
Ardoyne and Bone Community Festival will be online this year. The first event has been announced: ArdBone Community Bake Off. More info on the Festival's Facebook page.
Cancer Lifeline
Cancer Lifeline currently offers advocacy calls, counselling, welfare benefits advice, emergency shopping and medicine collection.
Its website (www.cancerlifeline.info) has useful videos on nutrition, building your immune system, gentle movement, relaxation, aromatherapy etc.
For phone referrals contact the office mobile 07949 109091 or Bryan on 07976 056464.
For email referrals: info@cancerlifeline.info or bryan@cancerlifeline.info. All email referrals must be password protected and password sent in a separate email.
The office will reopen when it is safe to do so.
Mental health counselling services
The pandemic presents many challenges for our young people. Mental health is not the least of them. At AYE, we are happy to support young people and refer them to other youth organisations and counselling services where appropriate.
New Life Counselling is now AMH New Life Counselling. The organisation remains open for referrals and is currently seeing clients by Zoom or phone. Anyone aged 4 or over can receive counselling. To refer yourself or someone else, visit www.amh.org.uk/new-life-counselling and click Get Counselling, or phone 028 9039 1630.
Jigsaw is currently providing one to one counselling by phone. To refer or self-refer, ring 07539 250941. Clients receive an average of 7 sessions in one course of engagement.
Health and wellbeing community champions
Communities in Transition, Ashton Community Trust and Carezone are looking for community champions and befrienders to support mental health and wellbeing in North Belfast. You must be prepared to commit to a minimum of 3 hours per week for training.
Contact paul.barton@ashtoncentre.com for an expression of interest form.
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AYE office, garden and meeting room
Our office and meeting room are not open to the public at present. We will inform you when this changes.
Our garden is open for meetings and socially distanced activities. If you would like to make use of it, contact thomas@ardoyne.org or catherine@ardoyne.org, or send a private message to our Facebook or Twitter accounts.
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AYE Newsletter
The AYE newsletter is a place to inform you of events and programmes of interest to you and your user groups, run by AYE and our member groups, as well as youth and community groups in Ardoyne, Marrowbone and wider North Belfast.
We aim to publish a newsletter every two months initially. Many of you have been sending us info which we share on our social media. Please keep doing this, and we will do our best to also include it in the newsletter wherever possible.
We're sending you this newsletter as a member or a stakeholder on our mailing list. If you wish to stop receiving it, you can unsubscribe below or email communications@ardoyne.org.
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