€600,000 Initiative To Benefit 28 Community-Based Youth Services

Almost 30 community based youth services are to benefit under the Youth Employability Initiative, the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs, Katherine Zappone, has announced.

The €600,000 initiative, funded under the Dormant Accounts Fund, will provide grants to voluntary youth services for programmes that target disadvantaged young people to improve their employability.

Over 380,000 young people participate in youth services, programmes and clubs throughout the country. Young people who engage in youth work activities have the opportunity to attain specific skills which can enhance employability. These skills include learning to learn, social and civic competence, leadership, communication, teamwork, and entrepreneurship. These are the 'soft skills' that are relevant and applicable to industry and valued and sought after by employers.

The new Youth Employability Initiative targets those young people who are most at risk of unemployment and who are not in education, employment or training. It provides programmes for them to enhance these skills.  

Over 1,000 young people aged 15-24 from across the country will participate in the 28 projects. While each project is different they can be broadly grouped into 4 categories.

• Social enterprise – These are projects which focus on developing enterprise skills and competencies in young people. For example Rialto Youth Project in Dublin 8 will target 10 young people from the Rialto, Inchicore and Bluebell area to design and develop sustainable social enterprises by providing a dynamic and positive space for participants to develop their ideas and visions for themselves and their communities. 

• Pre-training– These projects aim to provide tailored programmes to young people in need of additional support including young offenders, young people with addiction issues, young Travellers and young people with disabilities. The aim is to support these young people to access training programmes available in their areas. Once such programme will be delivered by Tipperary Regional Youth Service.

• Career guidance projects – These are projects which provide 'wrap around' tailored career guidance support including programmes that help young people to identify and address barriers to their progression. The Candle Community Trust in Ballyfermot will establish a Jobs Club two days per week and target the 186 young people they currently work with from the area for this type of additional support.

• Helping young people to get qualifications– These are projects which aim to support young people to gain accreditation including sports related accreditation. For instance, YMCA in Aungier Street will work with long term unemployed young people in a sports leadership programme that will see participants gain accreditation in a range of adventure sports areas including kayaking and mountain skills. 

Announcing the funding, Minister Zappone said: "I am very pleased to announce this initiative today which is a key commitment for my Department in the Programme for Government and also makes a contribution towards the Government Action Plan on Jobs."

The Minister also said that while all 28 youth services have experience in working with difficult to engage young people, this is a new type of work for both the youth projects and her Department. The Department will set up a Forum with the successful projects to provide a community of learning to share experiences and knowledge and to gather and share the lessons from this initiative to inform future policy in this area. The Initiative will be also be evaluated.

(MH/LM)