300 young people from all over the world have attended one of Foróige’s flagship events, the Albert Schweitzer Leadership for Life Conference with delegates coming from South Korea, Nigeria, Palestine, Ireland, Northern Ireland, UK, USA and India. Speakers included Louise Phelan of Paypal, Kenneth Egan the Olympic Champion boxer, Dr. Mary Redmond who is the Founder of the The Wheel and the Hospice Foundation, Dominic Jude who is Entrepreneur and has scaled Mount Everest, Martina Harford the Chief Executive at The Educational Company of Ireland and Marina Donoghue who is Head of Education at Enterprise Ireland.
A group of 15 Foróige volunteers and staff have completed the Reach Out 101 mental health awareness programme. The graduation and evaluation of the pilot programme took place yesterday evening in Cork. The programme was completed over 5 sessions and was carried out entirely online.
Foróige has played a central part of many people’s lives for over 61 years. We think it’s time for your local community to see the impact clubs have made on young people’s lives and the impact that the young people have made on their own communities. 2013 is the year of ‘The Gathering’ and Foróige wants to ‘gather up’ as many of our old members, volunteers and former staff as possible.
Meet some of the volunteers who work at the Foróige Ballyshannon/Bundoran Neighbourhood Youth Project which has been operating for the last 12 years. The project works in conjunction with the Gardaí, social workers, education welfare officers, parents, schools, volunteers and many other agencies to plan and implement specific needs led programmes for young people from 10- 18 years. As most projects have been facing huge cut backs due to the economic times we are in, it has proven extremely difficult to sustain the level of work we do with the budgets we are working with.
Thousands of teenagers from across Ireland travelled to Longford at the weekend to take part in Ireland’s largest drug and alcohol free music festival for young people. Now in its second year, the hugely popular Foróige HYPE Youth Festival proves that teenagers do not need drugs or alcohol to have a good time.
Valentine O'Kelly from Bundoran in Co. Donegal has captured the hearts of the members of her community with the level of time and assistance she has given to others in need. Val has been a volunteer with Foróige’s Ballyshannon/Bundoran Neighbourhood Youth Project (NYP) since it started operating over 12 years ago.
