Clonakilty Foroige club is honoured for its youth café plan

A CLONAKILTY club was among the winners at the Foróige Youth Citizenship Awards in partnership with Aldi in the Citywest Hotel and Conference Centre in Dublin recently. 

The event was opened by Minister for Children and Youth Affairs, Dr Katherine Zappone TD, with  talks from disability rights campaigner Joanne O’Riordan and social media expert Darragh Doyle.

It celebrated the inspirational contribution that young people have made to their communities with music from Keywest, giant indoor rock climbing and abseiling, a snowboarding simulator, recording studio, miniature golf and a variety of other activities. The young people in attendance also got to learn about the amazing work of their peers taking place throughout the country.

The awards celebrated the work of young people in the community over the past year with over 2,000 young people in attendance as well as hundreds of volunteers. 160 community enhancement projects were exhibited at the event with all 26 Counties represented.

Clonakilty Foróige Club’s lobbying and community engagement initiative to develop a youth café in Clonakilty was honoured. Having no dedicated space for their meetings, Clonakilty Foróige Club decided to undertake a project to create a youth café in their community. 

The young people formed a committee and found a suitable building in the area. They worked together to engage TDs and their local town council to make them aware of the lack of facilities for young people and to seek their support for the project. 

The group agreed a lease with the owner of a building and are in the process of putting the health and safety guidelines for the property in place, in advance of opening the youth café. 

The young people have received huge support from the wider community for the project, which they hope will be completed shortly.