Author: Anthony Irtelli

On Friday 28 June Anne Milton MP met Chas Walker, John Slater (YMCA DLG Chair of the Board), Jason Stacey (YMCA England & Wales) along with YMCA Guildford’s Head of Operations Paul Napthine.

Anne has a long history with YMCA Guildford, and even slept out for Sleep Easy 2013. She toured The Bridge and The Bridge Kitchen, and heard about the training and employment opportunities available for young people. She also learned about YMCA Positive Placements and YMCA WiSE, and got an insight into the role played by Jessica, the new Skills Advisor.

This was followed by a tour of YMCA Guildford Foyer. Anne was very supportive of all that is going on and plans to visit again in October.

The 6^th of June 1844 is credited with being the day that Sir George Williams founded the YMCA, which has now become the largest youth charity in the world with YMCAs in 120 Countries reaching over 60 million people. George Williams was 22 years old when he, and a group of associates, founded the YMCA in a drapery store next to St Paul’s Cathedral in London – youth empowerment seems to be in our DNA!

Our CEO Chas was fortunate to be in London on Thursday 6th of June with YMCA leaders from around the country, and representatives from across the globe, for a special service of thanksgiving at St Martins in the Field to celebrate the founding anniversary. We were joined by World YMCA Secretary General, Carlos Sanvee, who spoke to us about the international vision for the YMCA. It was interesting to hear him speak from an international perspective, emphasising that YMCA’s global role is to equip young people to transform their communities. He also alluded to how vital the energy, leadership and drive of young people is for their communities, particularly in areas where there is not a sophisticated social state system.

Our own 2020 Vision has been built around the importance of our communities engaging with young people in our projects, so they feel part of and valued in society. As we look beyond our 2020 Vision, we want to challenge ourselves to better support and equip young people to transform their communities. Our country certainly needs young people to bring fresh vision and energy to it!

The main event for celebrating YMCA175 is the largest youth conference ever organised by the YMCA. It is being held at London’s Excel Centre from the 4th to the 8th of August and is focused on the theme of youth empowerment and leadership. Young people from YMCAs across the world will be attending and our YMCA Right Here team are involved in supporting the event.

You can find out more about the event here: https://ymca175.com/

On Saturday 8 June, the annual Burgess Hill ‘Party in the Park’ will be held in St Johns Park, Burgess Hill. YMCA DownsLink Group Positive Placements has been named as the official charity and as such we will be in attendance all day from noon until 8pm.

We will be running, among other things, a Popcorn Stand, Face Painting and a Tombola. We’ve been on Mid Sussex and Burgess Hill radio in the lead up to explain who we are and what we do, with a focus on YMCA Positive Placements and the services we provide in Mid Sussex, and we will be live on air throughout the day.

YMCA Positive Placements recruits adult volunteers to be trained as mentors in order to support young people towards a positive future. This mentoring scheme involves working with young people to improve confidence, build life skills and write CVs to move on to education, training or employment.

We hope to see you there!

The YMCA Right Here team have launched a social media campaign running throughout May to raise awareness about the importance of sleep and its impact on young people’s wellbeing. This followed feedback from young people that they’re struggling with sleep – getting to sleep, staying asleep & living their lives fully when sleeping poorly.

The Right Here team engaged with YMCA Right Here’s Project Champions and Youth Ambassadors, as well as Brighton University Media Students, asking them ‘Why does sleep matter and what would you like to know more about?’ They said:

– Sleep re-energises you

– The quality of your sleep impacts your mental health

– Drugs/alcohol effect sleep

– Bad sleep affects your mood

– Bad sleep can make you more likely to misconstrue things

– Your concentration and focus are affected

– Bad sleep can cause paranoia, anxiety, insomnia, overthinking

– The way you dream can show how you are sleeping

The key aim for this campaign is to raise the importance of the relationship between sleep, health and wellbeing.

You can find out more about YMCA Right Here and the Retreat to Sleep campaign on their social channels:

Facebook

Instagram

Twitter

This Mental Health Awareness Week’s theme is body image – how we think and feel about our bodies.

As part of this, YMCA England & Wales commissioned a report investigating young people’s body confidence and social media, The Curate Escape. This research found that almost two thirds of young people feel pressure to look their best online and more than 67% worry about the way they look.

Less than a fifth of young people (16%) said that looking at social media positively affected how confident they felt about the way they look. When asked what could be done to change this more than two fifths of young people (43%) said that people should unfollow accounts that promote negative messages about the way people look to promote body confidence on their social media channels. Celebrities and social media influencers also have a role to play. More than half of young people (53%) said that celebrities and influencers sharing more realistic images of themselves would encourage people to post content that more accurately reflect what they look like in real life.

YMCA spoke to more than 2,000 young people aged 11 to 24 years old as part of this report, part of the charity’s Be Real Campaign.

You can join the fight against unrealistic beauty standards by signing up to the Be Real Body Image Pledge – here.

By signing the Pledge, individuals are making a commitment to limit or stop editing their pictures for social media, hold brands and organisations accountable if they lack diversity or promote unhealthy body image, celebrate their body’s achievements rather than their looks and spread the word about the Pledge to encourage more people to support the movement.

We’re delighted to be taking part in Artists Open Houses for a fourth year running, with 20 amazing artists exhibiting their work in Reed House!

We kicked off with a launch event on Tuesday 30 April, welcoming artists, staff, volunteers and other stakeholders through our doors. With a great DJ, food donated from Fatto a Mano and Chilli Pickle and our CEO Chas saying a few words of thanks, the evening was a great success! The artwork also proved incredibly popular, with a long queue of people waiting to pay at the tills. 30% of all artwork sold will be donated to YMCA DownsLink Group, helping young people in our services get back into education, training or employment.

We are also exhibiting art from the finalists of our recent art competition asking young people accessing our services to capture ‘Who Inspires You?’ The young person gets all the profits when their artwork is sold.

Raffle tickets are also on sale! £5 a strip or £1 a ticket – you can buy them from Open House volunteers at the weekends. There are some great prizes this year including Godstone Farm Family tickets, a £50 Boden gift card, Beauty Secrets Hove massage voucher as well as lots of amazing artwork! Winners will be drawn on the last day of the Open House on Sunday 26 May.

The Hove Arts trail also issue the “Hove Trotters” passport to younger art lovers, which encourages children to find facts about art in each venue through a series of questions and rewards them with stickers. Collect enough stickers and there’s a free Hot Chocolate and gift voucher at The Book Nook (children’s book shop) in Hove.

YMCA DLG’s Artists Open House is no.10 of the Hove Arts trail and is open to all from 11am to 6pm every weekend in May, plus the 6 May bank holiday. Pop in to see some excellent work, have a slice of cake and buy a raffle ticket to be in with a chance of winning great prizes!

For information and details on other Hove Arts venues, click here.

If you want to get involved on social media, tag in @ymcadlg @artistshouses using the hashtag #AOH2019