I’m in the process of updating our information sheets and along the way also giving some of our downloadable resources a makeover. We’re also making some of them free to download and heres the first one!

The ‘Group Rating Sliders’ are taken from a section on the Prospective Sheet. They are used for two reasons:

1. To help young people understand what the qualities are of an effective group
2. To help groups measure their own development as a group when involved in an activity or project

The download includes cards that groups can use to assess themselves at various stages during a project/activity. It also includes a facilitator guide that includes descriptions of the various qualities so that a facilitator can help participants understand the qualities when making their assessment.

The ratings are a self assessment and so can’t be compared (more…)

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Some more interviews with children involved with the Grace Orphan Project in Zomba, Malawi. Mussa (12) and Simple (13) are two of the nicest young people I’ve ever met - if they were in this country we’d have jumped at the chance to get them volunteering with us. As it is its probably more worthwhile that they’re talents are put to use to help the Grace project develop - lets hope they get the opportunities they will need to develop their education and stay involved….

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I caught this on BBC the other morning:

“I think children act like adults at an alarmingly early age,” said Dame Jacqueline Wilson, who has sold more than 30 million books. Her remarks came as a poll by her publisher suggested that more than half of parents believe childhood is now over by 11.

Which is of course a clever bit of publicity to launch her book. But it’s an interesting topic and my first thought was that its true - childhood and something I’ve long had a problem with is the tendency for work done with young people to put them in positions of adult responsibility (rather than allowing them to participate as children/young people).

Once I got off my high horse though I thought back to the children we work with in Malawi - their education finishes at primary level and then they may have to fend for themselves or even support their siblings. Then I thought its not so long ago children in this country could have been in a similar situation - the school leaving age was younger, think of the workhouses and what about the age of (more…)

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I responded to a blog on the Innovation Exchange about the Commonwealth Youth Exchange Council who are apparently interested in setting up a programme that brings together groups of young people within the UK to share ideas & experiences etc. The idea in fact sounds exactly the same as what we were doing on the Young Movers programme for the past 7 years.

Incidentally my reply hasn’t actually appeared on the Innovation Exchange Site - and incidentally too the Commonwealth Youth Exchange Council have yet to reply to a query I sent to them on a separate matter last week so if anyone picks up this please ask somebody to reply!

The ‘coming together’ of groups from different areas is a powerful experience - people get to appreciate they aren’t suffering their problems in isolation and very often realise that perhaps (more…)

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Heres a short clip of an interview with one of the members of Donegal Youth Council, taken from unused footage from their training with us in January 

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