Youth club gets lottery funding

St Mary's Youth Club in the town recently received 1,265 towards its Cultural Photography. The good news marks a new milestone for the programme which has now handed out over 1.2 million to more than 500 projects working with around 23,000 children and young people across Northern Ireland.

The Big Lottery Fund has also announced an additional investment of 500,000 into The Big Deal Small Grants programme to support even more projects developed by children and young people across Northern Ireland.

Speaking after the announcement Paul Cavanagh, Chair of the Big Lottery Fund's Young People's Fund Committee said: "I am delighted to announce this extra investment by the Big Lottery Fund. We are very aware of the impact of the economic downturn on communities in Northern Ireland and young people in particular. This additional funding will help even more young people develop projects that will support them in a range of innovative ways."

The programme allows those up to 25 years of age to apply for an award between 500 and 2,500 towards a project where they get to decide what it is they want to do, when, where and how!

"The impetus for the project came from the young people themselves - we have about 70 members aged 11 to 16 and the club is open three nights a week," explained St Mary's youth worker Jennifer McCullagh.

"The members said they wanted to learn a new skill and they settled on photography but they also wanted it to tie in with topics they're already working on, things like politics, drug and alcohol awareness.

"The young people will be making these the themes for their photography by photographing murals, for example, and then areas where they know there are a lot of cans or bottles lying empty after street drinking."

However, the young people hope the photography project is just the beginning: "We hope their work will motivate them to take things a stage further and use their photographic evidence to help make changes," said Jennifer.

"For instance, it might make them question how young people are able to get hold of alcohol in the first place. These are issues they might even want to take up with the local police."