Children and Young People's Forum
These are the stories of some of the young people who have taken part in the Northern Ireland Children and Young People’s Forum (CYPF).
They were provided with a number of questions as prompts and these stories came from the answers they gave.The aim of this exercise was to enable the participants and beneficiaries of the programme to say how they had benefited from participation in the programme.
There are a number of common themes going through the stories
- Surprise that others - particularly adults and Government agencies - wanted to get their opinions and were willing to listen to them.
- The sense of satisfaction and self worth that came from being trusted to make decisions on the allocation of small grants
- Meeting and getting to know new young people from different parts of Northern Ireland and from different religious and cultural backgrounds
- Being listened to by their peers and learning to listen to them.
- Gaining the confidence to express their opinions in a group situation.
- The importance to young people of the informality of the leaders and being treated as equals.
- The new information they got especially about the possibility of groups in their own area applying for small grants.
- The fun they had:this has been such an important element in the whole programme. Without it, it is questionable whether many of them would have stayed with it or indeed joined in the first place. Fun is important for its own sake. At the same time shared fun is probably the most effective way of promoting new relationships and friendships and making all the other elements in the programme interesting.
CYPF Celebration Event - March 2010
The Big Deal CYPF Celebration Event was a huge success. This was the first time we brought the 5 areas together and gave CYP across NI a chance to meet and get to know each other. It was an opportunity to showcase in front of all the members and key representatives from other agencies the achievements of the programme to date.The presentations were done mainly by members of the Forum and Ruth Ellis (CYPF member) compered the whole event very competently. The Director of the Big Lottery Fund for NI, Walter Rader, opened up the event and at the end of the presentations facilitated a participative reflective exercise. The Director also talked to each Forum individually about their work and advised them on future funding activities. Walter Radar said that he thoroughly enjoyed the event and he found it very invigorating.
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