CDYS Youth Work Ireland

    To engage the young people in a positive and productive way in order to nurture their personal development, analysing articles, interview skills and training, which will impact on their lives.  

    To have open discussions about what they value and write about them. To promote a positive role in their community.

    Our cooking program aim is to build on life skills and promoting independent living, understanding and the cost effectiveness of home cooking with affordable, easier and healthier options. 

    These classes are to help to build self confidence and self esteem while working as a team, this is definitely a lively and exciting and adventurous cooking class, which has keep the youths intrigued and interested which is also helping them towards their Gaisce Awards.

    What an amazing night on Wednesday nights, it was music to our ears - Guitars, drums, piano and Violin and all running smoothly and at the same time they were all fabulous guys and girls. 

    Our music class is there because "Music is a magical gift we must nourish and cultivate in our children, especially now as scientific evidence proves that an education in the arts makes better math and science students, so lets hope it works. 

    If anyone out there has a musical instrument they no longer want and would like to donate to us we would love to hear from you or you play and instrument and would love to teach some of our youths we would love for you to volunteer.

    Dance4life is a global initiative which aims to inspire, mobilise and unite young people in the battle against HIV and AIDS. CDYS-Cobh was delighted to be one of the lucky groups to have the program allocated to them.   

    The program was founded in 2003 and is now up and running in 20 countries. The Irish dance4life program is being run by the Irish Family Planning Association (IFPA) and is offered to schools and youth organizations. The program uses music, dance, video and workshops to equip students with skills and knowledge around HIV/ AIDs, STIs and safe sex. 

    The Volunteers and the youths of CDYS-Cobh, Feabhas and The Sinead Sheppard School of Dance, all came together and were taught the routine that is part of the programme and is based around the dance4life drill, a dance that is taught to students in each of the participating countries. Students also participate in skills4life workshops which equip young people with the skills and knowledge to protect themselves against HIV and other sexually transmitted infections. 

    An outreach advocacy programme helps young people to share the knowledge they have gained with their peers.  Watch out for upcoming dates for the skills4life which is a four hour training session, which is being run in conjunction with CDYS-Cobh.  If anyone is interested in this training please contact  Sonya on 0863065517.
 

    CDYS Cobh were so delighted to have 2 volunteers be chosen to be part of the Intergenerational training in Switzerland, Sonya Tobin and Adrian Sheehy. Meeting up with 24 fantastic people from 9 European Countries and we were proud to be chosen for the training. 
    The aim of the training was to be able to set up new project to bring older and younger people together in purposeful, mutually beneficial activities. We were there to understand the stereotypes that are around in our community and be able to breaks down barriers that exist between younger and older people in our communities.  To help build respectful and cohesive communities which in time we hope will reduce social exclusion.  Through intergenerational  youth work, younger people can experience lifelong learning concept and will become more active and inclusive citizens in their community. 
 
While in Switzerland were able to explore ageism and identify and challenge the prejudices and stereotypes about age. To be able to raise awareness and understanding about the nature of ‘intergenerational work’ and how it fits together with the concept of lifelong learning.  While learning to generate some new ideas and what we can do at local and

European levels to develop current intergenerational practice.  In our local community we hope to provide foundations to enable participants to: network, share intergenerational work “best practice” and promote and implement intergenerational work in our own communities within the context of the Youth in Action program.

We are hoping to make links in our community with those who maybe retired or have time on their hands who would  like to meet with our young people in your community or be part of these community projects. If there is anyone out there that would like to come to us with ideas or to join us to find out more information about projects that  we will be running in the new year please feel free to call into us in the Parish Centre, Cobh or to Contact Sonya or Adrian on 0863065517 we would be delighted to hear from you.

We would like to welcome our very own in house DJ Mikey, Mikey will be running a DJ course here for the young people. I think is going to be a cracker of a project for the lads & girls, everyone is really looking forward to it.