#foroige

Wicklow teen tastes sweet success in Regional Baking Final

  Aoife O’Neill goes through to semi-final of the Aldi National Junior Baking Competition The regional final for the National Junior Baking Competition, which is sponsored by Aldi in association with Foróige and the National Ploughing Association, took place in Dublin yesterday, Monday, the 18th of July. Participants were put forward to the regional leg of the competition having won their county…

Here is what the Hot Spot Youth Café, Youghal did to get their flag!

''mental health talk by Reach Out Ireland.

Fenella Murphy along with her colleagues Gillian and Tara met with the members of the Hot Spot Youth Café. These young people are aged between 13 and 14 and are mostly first years from the local secondary schools. This is the second time Reach out Ireland have been to Youghal. They spoke at the mental health week which was organised in Nagle House last February however their target audience at that event was older teenagers.

Following our promotion of positive mental health within the Youth Centre we are hoping to receive a flag which we can display outside the building ' Nagle House' showing the people of Youghal that The Hot spot youth café is an area where good mental health is paramount. 

Fenella and her colleagues engaged the young people with an insightful presentation including a video from when they met Andrew Morley (aka Spencer from Home & Away) he spoke about how he gets through the tough times.

Finally the girls finished with an inspiring activity called 'Note to Self' a postcard, where the young people wrote a positive note to themselves which Fenella will post back to the young people's home addresses. 

We also conducted a Green Ribbon 'Start the conversation night' where we discussed mental health. 

we talked about how experiencing a mental health problem is simply part and parcel of the ups and downs of teenage life and can happen to any of us but the silence around mental health stops people seeking help and makes the experience of being unwell much harder. It doesn’t have to be this way.

The chances are that you or someone you know will, go through a tough time at some point so why not talk about it and learn how to support each other? This is what we did. When the young people showed their support for another young person we gave them a green ribbon pin.

We engaged the young people by telling them that you don’t need to be an expert to start talking about mental health or have all the answers. Sometimes the most helpful thing you can do is to let someone know that you are there for them and simply listen.

Although you can’t solve someone else’s problems, knowing the basics about how to support someone can really help you – and them.''

Kilmovee Family Resource Centre – 16th September

Guitar Classes Classes will continue in Kilmovee Family Resource Centre from Saturday September 25th. Times will be confirmed later. For more information and to book a place please contact Kilmovee FRC on 094 9649814 Walking Group A group will meet every Monday morning at 9.30am. The walk will take different routes and distances and will accommodate all fitness level. Kilmovee Foroige Club…

We were approached by the managers of our venue, St. Michael's House, with the suggestion to make our mark, as we share the club area with a younger club and a musical society, as well as the daily visitors to St. Michael's. We decided to refurbish parts of the facility, as some of the furniture was old and worn. St. Michael's were also in need of a kiln which we provided funds for by holding a bake sale in the house during a club night.

The main idea became creating a mural in the storage room, as the room had not been painted and was a perfect opportunity for us to expand our presence in St. Michael's beyond our few photos on the wall. The mural became a fantastic display of what our club is about as we worked as a team to design and paint it with the help of our community to source supplies.

All in all these little errands here and there are what helped us contribute to our community and it was a very gradual process towards improving the quality of the community life.

We have a few reasons for choosing this need as our project. Firstly we heard that the members of St Michael's house were really hoping to get a kiln to benefit the art and craft department. We saw this as a great opportunity to give something back to St. Michael's house after all they have done for us. We also saw this as a benefit to our club as we would be able to have use of of this wonderful facility.

Another reason we did this need was because we noticed a lack of supplies in the kitchen such as spoons, chopping boards, weighing scales, etc. and since cooking and baking is a favorite past time for not just St. Michael's House but also the the younger Foróige club and our club we decided to raise some money by, of course, having a bake sale and making a trip to IKEA.

Finally, our last reason for this need was because St. Michael's house asked us to make our mark in the building hence the mural we did which was a continue on a past members ASLFL module 3 project which took many weeks and dirty hands to complete.

We researched a few things, including:

how much it would cost St. Michael’s House to get the Kiln, so that when we were raising money to aid them, that would have an estimate donation to aim for

what it would cost to make the mural, by searching the prices of paint and brushes, while also looking for alternative, cheaper methods

what other things we could do to aid St.Michael’s House and deciding to evaluate and list all the items that were missing from the kitchens. Also where we could buy the items that were missing from the list.

This was the first time the Diamond Divas took part in the Foróige citizenship challenge. The girls could not come up with an idea for ages. I had decided to teach the girls more about mental health when I was planning the group last september as I felt it is an issue young people need to be aware of and they need to be taught more of it, from that day forward they thought it would be a fantastic idea to raise awareness on mental health as I had explained to them about the stigma around the issue when I was doing some mental health presentations with them every 2 weeks. It started off by making scrapbooks for themselves, the girls put different types of tips to help them if they have a bad day. Unfortuately the girls didn’t get to finish their scrapbooks as they were focused on raising awareness on mental health all around the community. The plan is to continue to finish the scrapbooks this term. 

The girls worked very hard during their project. They thought about how they could make a difference in their community and make a difference to people that are suffering in silence. The girls set out to raise awareness and ended up raising €252.80 for Jigsaw Dublin 15 which was a bonus for the project and also Jigsaw Dublin 15. The girls gained so many skills, they have learned that its ok not to be ok, and to ask for help if they need it. The girls faced many challenges along the way but that did not stop them from working so hard to get what they set out to do. I was so happy when I contacted Jigsaw and told them about the project they supported us throughout it and kept in contact to see if the girls needed anything. 

Not only did the local community benefit from our project, but people from all over the world benefited from the video that the girls made to raise awareness. Myself and Shannon are the only ones that has twitter accounts so we had tweeted it to people in America that retweeted it for us. The video also made the Breaking News.ie, the Journal.ie and Phoenix Fm website. The girls achieved what they set out to do, they will continue to raise awareness on mental health in the coming months. I am very proud of how hard the girls worked on this project, they also benefitted from the project because they can now work as part of a team and know what to do if they need to talk to someone, they know not to be afraid to talk. 

Q6.

images from the steps I have taken...

step one - PLANNING.

STEP TWO - CORRESPONDENCE ..

STEP 3- FLYERS..

 STEP FOUR - FLAG DESIGNS.. 

 final design ...

STEP FIVE - BOTS.

Established in the early 1960's, Louisburgh Foróige is no stranger to working with young people and promoting youth participation. Our club has evolved over the years with many ex-members becoming adult leaders within our club.