Community groups, young people and practitioners came together to showcase the learnings from a life-changing programme to empower children and young people in Northern Ireland.
Empowering Young People and its associated support network, LINKS, both close this year after almost ten years of supporting projects that have given young people in the region the opportunity to develop skills to cope with difficult times in their lives.
Practitioners and young people shared how the Empowering Young People programme has supported them to overcome the challenges that they faced and what they have learnt at a celebration and shared learning event in Belfast on September 17.
Empowering Young People – Learning from the Community & Voluntary Sector will cover themes such as mental health and wellbeing, community engagement, supporting LGBTQIA+ people and supporting young people with additional needs. It will also feature an opening address from the office of the Northern Ireland Commissioner for Children and Young People.
Empowering Young People was launched in 2015 by The National Lottery Community Fund’s Northern Ireland directorate. To date, the Fund has awarded £65.5 million from the programme to 155 projects, supporting nearly 100,000 children and young people across Northern Ireland to get the skills they need for their future; to have better relationships with their support networks and communities; and to have good health and wellbeing.
The programme funded projects lasting from one to five years that worked with young people (between the ages of 8 and 25), enabling them to face and overcome challenges. Each project involved young people in their development, design, delivery and evaluation.
The LINKS support network was facilitated by the National Children’s Bureau (NCB) and delivered to all of the organisations grant aided under the Empowering Young People programme, enhancing practice and encouraging the involvement of young people in all aspects of the projects.
The support provided by LINKS was delivered through:
- Workshops – on a variety of themes based on the issues facing young people and those facing the organisations that supported them
- Cluster group meetings – informal networking opportunities for organisations to connect with fellow grant holders, to give and receive peer support and to discuss how their projects are progressing and what challenges they are facing
- Tailored one-to-one support for individual organisations
Watch highlights from the event and hear from some of the participants in this video:
This event was a wonderful opportunity to hear first-hand from some of those young people and practitioners whose lives have been transformed by the Empowering Young People programme’s wide range of incredible projects. With the support of The National Lottery Community Fund, the voluntary and community sector has done an exceptional job providing support to young people and their communities over the course of this programme, which has encompassed austerity, a global pandemic, a lengthy absence of government and a cost-of-living crisis.
Frances Lyons
Northern Ireland Director and Head of Research and Evidence at NCB
As we come to the end of the Empowering Young People programme, we want to pay tribute to all the groups that that have been awarded funding over the last 10 years. They have truly put youth voice at the heart of their work and changed the lives of thousands of children and young people across Northern Ireland. We also want to thank NCB for their support. Everyone involved should be very proud of the impact made through National Lottery funding.
Empowering Young People closed in May this year to allow time to develop a new funding offer, aligned with the missions set out in our new strategy leading up to 2030, ‘It starts with community’, which will open later in the autumn. Our future funding will build on the success of Empowering Young People and the learning which will be shared at this important event. Thanks to those who play The National Lottery, who continue to raise amazing amounts of money for good causes, making our funding possible.
Kate Beggs
Northern Ireland Director, The National Lottery Community Fund
The BASE @ Tobin, based in Moortown, is a programme funded by Empowering Young People. Over the last five years, this funding has enabled The BASE @ Tobin to help many young people with additional needs and their families, not only locally, but across Mid-Ulster, enabling them to feel integrated in the community, have a sense of belonging, feel socially included and supported.
Loretta Daly, Project Manager, The BASE @ Tobin said:
“This was an important day to reflect on the help and support provided to all Empowering Young People grant holders over the last ten years by the NCB LINKS network. The facilitated knowledge sharing and opportunity to attend training workshops has been invaluable to the success of the work of all grant holders”.
An integral part of LINKS was the provision of a six-month paid internship for a young person at NCB, with a total of five interns participating over the course of the programme. Each intern identified their own learning goals, which their mentor and other staff at NCB helped them achieve.
The internship provided real-life paid work experience with the interns helping to plan and run events, provide administrative assistance and gain a deep insight into the children’s voluntary and community sector in Northern Ireland.
During my time at NCB, I have learned more than I ever expected to about the world of work and about myself. My internship allowed me to gain valuable skills such as undertaking event planning, LINKS project reviews, involvement in the Young Persons Advisory Group, administrative skills…the list could go on! These experiences were only made possible through the support and learning from the amazing NCB team.
Rebecca
Former LINKS intern at NCB