Join Our Youth Clubs
We work with young people to discover their talents and abilities, support their wellbeing, make informed decisions about their lives, and actively participate in their communities. Our projects are always changing and innovating, led by young people’s input and feedback, to give our young people fun and engaging experiences…
Youth City
We run a weekly youth club for 7–11-year-olds called ‘Youth City’, led by volunteers from the community.
Easter and Summer Camps
We also run summer camps for our Youth City age group! We work in partnership with Sligo Sports and Recreation Partnership, Sligo LEADER SICAP, and others to run our fun activities and bring the children on trips.
Personal Development / Transition Programme
Recently, we worked with Foróige to offer a free personal development / transition programme for the girls on the Abbey United aged between 10–12 years old in The C.R.I.B.
This programme had a strong focus on personal development whilst also providing age-appropriate information and education in relation to smoking, drugs and alcohol. The programme also aimed to help young people to develop their self-confidence and preparing them for situations which they may encounter as they become teenagers.
With this age cohort of young people, the content focused on:
- Communication Skills
- Decision-Making Skills
- Assertiveness
- Social Skills
- Understanding Consequences
- Smoking / Vaping Education
The programme was delivered in a fun and interactive way, which encouraged a lot of discussion and input from the young people involved. The young people really enjoyed working together on this project, and it has created a great team-building experience for them. We are hoping to collaborate on more projects of a similar nature soon.
Teenage Group
After much discussion, our teenage youth group was self-named ‘The Wednesday Thing’! The group meet for exciting new experiences, trying out activities with the help of our volunteers. We’re proud to provide a great space for our teens to express their individuality, learn how to innovate, and make new friends. The group have even completed a Young Social Innovators project and were presented with YSI certificates on Friday 30th June 2023!
Just a few of our previous activities include:
- Filming (4 Sessions with Videographer Cían Flynn)
- Clean Coasts Litter Pick in Doorly Park
- Art classes (with Cormac O’Leary)
- Skatepark Visits (Scooting and Rollerblading)
- Baking
- Chess
- Pizza Making
- Gardening
The Pizza Oven Project
The teenage group with support of local volunteer mentors built a clay oven pizza for the community garden. This was something we wanted the young people to feel ownership of and use how they wanted. We organised for people to talk to them about social enterprise and innovation. The group won a Sligo/Leitrim Garda Division Youth Award in the group category.
Youth Forums
Our Youth Forums provide spaces for young people to have a say in matters that affect their lives is part of our work. We do this in our weekly ‘Youth City’ clubs for 7–11-year-olds, in our teenage youth group ‘the Wednesday Thing’, and we also run youth forum get-togethers for teenagers where we connect through games and chats.
We have gained valuable insights into how young people feel about issues in their area, and project ideas like the hip hop DJing and pizza oven projects came about through these conversations.
Ireland Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth’s Participation of Children and Young People in Decision-making ACTION PLAN 2024-2028 is accessible here.
Youth Blog
Hear more from our local young people in their blog!
Kid’s Own Partnership
We also work in partnership with
Kid’s Own Publishing Partnership, Ireland’s only dedicated publisher of books by children, to deliver innovative projects for young people ensuring children’s voices are heard through the production of a publication at the end of each project. Here is a link to our current project together:
Four seasons in our garden - a yearbook, and our previous
Green Futures project.
Four Seasons in Cranmore Community Co-op Garden: A Yearbook
Over the course of a year the Cranmore Community Garden hosts artists and scientists to facilitate conversations with a multi-generational community group. As well as exhibitions and events throughout the year, the project will also produce a garden yearbook publication. (Announcing 24 Spark Creative Climate Action Fund II projects - Creative Ireland Programme).
Football
Cranmore Community Co-op support community members to start clubs and groups in the community. Community members came to the Co-op for support to get Abbey United, a local football club, back up and running after 20 years of inactivity, for young people in the area.
We supported them by hosting recreational football, taking on the community leaders as volunteer coaches, ensuring all training and safeguarding was in place, covering the insurance and assistance with registering and covid protocol.
The recreational soccer was hugely subscribed. The volunteer coaches then registered as a club, we supported them to set up their committee and get all their policies in place and covered their insurance for the first year.
Abbey United football club went from strength to strength because of the community leaders who had a vision for their community and young people. We are very privileged we were able to support them at the beginning of their journey. Well done to all involved.
Disney Playmakers
In 2023, we supported Abbey United to run the first Disney Playmakers, a football programme for young girls aged 5–8 years old in partnership with Abbey United, Sligo Springboard, Sligo Social Services Afterschool (Abbeyquarter Centre), and Sligo Sport and Recreation Partnership. This year Abbey United have taken it on themselves and it’s going from strength to strength. It ran for 10 weeks beginning in June 2023, with 26 participants.
We held a presentation ceremony of certificates and medals (provided by Abbey United F.C) with Garda Mark Connors delivering the presentations. We organised an ice-cream van to come over for the ceremony and An Garda Síochána kindly paid for this on the day. Carl Brennan photographer came to take photos for Sligo Champion.
Due to its success, another programme was run in the winter months which came to an end on Tuesday 28th November. There were approx. 18-20 regular participants each week. Lisa joined with Garda Mark Connors and Charlene Carty from Sligo Sports and Recreation Partnership to hold a celebration ceremony presenting the participants with certificates of completion, medals, and selection boxes (provided by An Garda Siochána). Feedback from both parents and participants was great, with most upset this project was ending.
The participants were provided with a 20% discount to join Abbey United F.C Academy, approximately 10 participants have joined the community football club from this project.
Parent Comments
“It’s great to have girls only football because sometimes my girl gets annoyed when the boys won’t pass the ball to her, and she likes playing football.”
“It’s nice, it’s not all about football and they can still be part of a team together.”
“I can’t believe she is taking part and going in with the group, she’s normally very shy.”