Author: Anthony Irtelli

After hours of deliberation by the Judging Panel, and more than 7,000 votes, the finalists for this year’s prestigious YMCA Youth Matters Awards have just been announced. We are delighted that four of YMCA DownsLink Group’s projects have been nominated in three categories!

The YMCA Youth Matters Awards is an annual awards event celebrating the achievements of young people, staff and volunteers. The awards are about giving thanks and special recognition to every YMCA, young person, service user, member of staff and volunteer whose hard work and unfaltering dedication have all contributed towards YMCA’s efforts to create better communities for young people and families.

The ceremony takes place on Friday 8 November 2019 in London and we wish all our projects good luck!

 

YMCA DLG has been nominated in the following categories:

Diversity Award

Unaccompanied Asylum-Seeking Children work – YMCA Guildford Foyer, YMCA DownsLink Group

FEAR//LESS project – YMCA DownsLink Group

Weston Youth Café – YMCA Dulverton Group

 

Best Projects of the Year – Training & Education

Discovery College – YMCA Plymouth

Put the spark back into your future – YMCA DownsLink Group

Step up – YMCA North Staffordshire

 

Best Projects of the Year – Health & Wellbeing

Cafe Thursday – YMCA Exeter

YMCA WiSE – YMCA DownsLink Group

Heads Together – YMCA East Surrey

 

 

As part of Horsham’s Year of Culture, Horsham YMCA Football Club are hosting a play about football, The Red Lion, at their football ground, Gorings Mead.

It’s on 6 September at 7.30pm. Tickets are £10 (£5 concessions) and available from 01403 750220 or www.thecapitolhorsham.com

Get your tickets now!

YMCA DLG projects shortlisted for the national YMCA Youth Matters Awards!

Voting has now opened for YMCA’s annual Youth Matters Awards and will close on Monday 26 August. YMCA Youth Matters Awards is an annual awards event taking place on Friday 8 November, which celebrates the achievements of young people, staff and volunteers. The awards are about giving thanks and special recognition to every YMCA, young person, service user, member of staff and volunteer whose hard work and unfaltering dedication have all contributed towards YMCA’s efforts to create better communities for young people and families.

Vote now to help our amazing projects win! Anyone can vote so do share this with your friends, family and professional networks.

• Our YMCA WiSE project has been nominated for the Health and Wellbeing Project of the Year Award. Click here to find out why and vote for YMCA WiSE.
• Put the spark back into your future has been nominated for the Training & Education Project of the Year Award. Click here to find out why and vote for it.
• Our FEAR//LESS Project, has been nominated for the Diversity Award. Click here to find out why and vote for FEAR//LESS.
• YMCA Guildford’s work with unaccompanied children seeking asylum, has also been nominated for the Diversity Award. Click here to find out why and vote for it.

Votes cast by the public will be combined with judges’ choices to determine the top three finalists for each awards category. The finalists will attend the awards ceremony in November, where the winners will be announced. More information on all the awards categories and those shortlisted can be found at www.ymca.org.uk/about/awards. If you can find 10 minutes in your day it’s worth reading about the achievements of young people, staff, volunteers and projects all making a difference throughout England and Wales as part of the YMCA.

Please support our projects and vote now (please note you may only vote once in each category)!

YMCA DLG burst into Brighton Pride in a cloud of sequins, glitter and rainbow flags!

This year marked 50 years since the Stonewall Inn riots in New York – a pivotal event in the gay liberation movement- so the theme was Generations of Love, marking each decade from 1969 onwards. Our design lead Andrew Cummings worked incredibly hard, alongside a team of staff and young people, to create a float that payed homage to the Stonewall Inn – by recreating it! The float and our dancing party at the front made a real impression as we wound our way through the procession – with the crowd getting particularly enthused when ‘YMCA’ came blaring out of the speakers!

Participants were all in high spirits and made our float one of the most vibrant and colourful in the whole parade.

Danielle, YMCA DLG service user, commented:

“I took part in Pride in loving memory of my mum, who was a very loud and proud woman! I felt like she was there partying with us in spirit.”

Chas Walker, CEO, YMCA DLG says:

“YMCA DownsLink Group supports young people to belong, contribute and thrive regardless of gender, sexuality or beliefs. We’re delighted to share these values and stand in solidarity with our vibrant and diverse LGBTQ+ community in Brighton and Hove.”

Thank you to our sponsors Griffith Smith LLP, Wilmott Dixon and Tullett Self Drive, and to Mills Removals and Portslade Aldridge Community Academy (PACA) for lending us their sites to store our float.

A huge thank you also needs to go to the staff, volunteers and young people who went above and beyond to make Brighton Pride such a success!

Check out what we got up to below:

Trans Pride Brighton & Hove 2019 was on Saturday 20th July in Brunswick Square – the biggest event Trans Pride has ever done, with an impressive turn out of Queer people and allies! The show of support from the city and services was astounding, making this one of the most inclusive and awesome Trans Prides to date. Local MP Caroline Lucas even took to social media sharing how wonderful it was to see so many attendees, which reflects how far the UK is coming in terms of acceptance:

“Amazing turnout for #TransPrideBrighton – biggest Trans Pride event in Europe & home to the first ever #TransPride in UK 7 years ago”, highlighting what a “Wonderful celebration of all that’s been achieved.”

This year YMCA YAC and YMCA WiSE attended our first ever Trans Pride! YMCA YAC and YMCA WiSE recognised the importance of showing our support as allies to the Trans, Non-Binary, Intersex and Gender (TNBI+) variant community, hosting a stall offering information, advice, signposting and BADGE MAKING! We wanted to demonstrate the work we do to make our clients in the LGBTQ+ community feel accepted and safe when accessing our services.

During the event, YMCA YAC conducted research into ways of developing inclusivity throughout our service provision, looking for ways that we can involve the LGBTQ+ and TNIB+ community in informing our service development. As members of the community and working alongside many young people, it was a delight to get so much feedback and listen to the queer voices that are so often faced with erasure within institutional frameworks.

YMCA WiSE are looking to develop LGBTQ+ inclusive resources around healthy relationships, sex and consent. We were at Trans Pride asking the trans community what things they wish they had learnt at sex education at school. We were really impressed by how many amazing suggestions we got, covering issues such as different types of sexualities, relationships, pleasure and consent. We soon ran out of paper and space on our board!

It was a great day of pride, fun and empowerment for all involved and gave YMCA YAC and YMCA WiSE a great opportunity to demonstrate how much we care for members of the LGBTQ+ and TNBI+ community. It also gave us a chance to interact with many young people who we may not have previously engaged with – the aim is that the feedback from the queer community will help YMCA DLG to become more inclusive and to develop services influenced by queer people!

Scroll down for some photos from the day: