OUR MISSION

Hope for Youth, Northern Ireland believes that community-based projects promote inclusion and support diversity. We provide funding to support art, drama, music, and sports projects that allow opportunities for young people to work together, learn new skills, build friendships, and develop their confidence and creativity.

GRANTS 2025

REACH Across

REACH Across were delighted to be joined by Phoebe from Hope for Youth NI to present a cheque, having recently been awarded a generous £4,000 grant to support their Summer Programme! Chloe, Kelsi, Lachlan and Aidan were delighted to accept the grant on behalf of their youth club!

Hope For Youth NI (formerly Women Caring Trust) has stood by REACH Across for over 20 years — and the Charity's continued support means they can keep delivering amazing cross-community activities for young people.

With 120 new members this year and an average of 70 at each youth club night, the funding makes a huge difference — ensuring they can continue to provide a safe programme to build friendships, encourage understanding and having lots of fun during the summer months.

Chloe, Kelsi, Lachlan and Aidan were delighted to accept the grant from Phoebe Traill on behalf of Hope for Youth NI

THE PUSHKIN TRUST – PUSHKIN PATHWAY

For the past 30 years the Pushkin Trust has been encouraging children and teachers in schools all over Ireland to find their ‘voice’ and discover their imagination, inspiration and integration. The Pushkin Pathway is the Pushkin Trust’s Secondary School Programme. It is an innovative programme which involves teenagers from controlled and maintained schools. It follows the Pushkin principles of creativity as the key to unlocking young people’s voices.

The Pushkin Pathway through the support of Hope for Youth NI was delivered in May 2025 as a three-day experience at Baronscourt Estate in County Tyrone.

Pupils and their teachers from Christian Brothers Grammar School and Omagh High School participated in an environmental exploration in the morning led by a different environmental facilitator each day. In the afternoon three groups rotated through creative writing, dance and a creative media workshop in partnership with the Nerve Centre from Derry/Londonderry. By the end of their three Pushkin Pathway Days, pupils and their teachers had experienced all three different environmental workshops and all three arts-based workshops led by professional facilitators of the Pushkin theme ‘The Spiking Heat of Inspiration’.

Baronscourt also provided environmentalists who delivered the outdoor workshops with the perfect backdrop for their sessions. They used the tranquil, beautiful, wooded areas and gardens as the inspiration for the pupils to investigate, learn and get creative with the natural world – often a world quite removed from their own. The unique element of this project funded by Hope for Youth N I was the involvement of the ‘Nerve Centre’, Ireland’s leading Creative Media Arts Centre. This provided a means through which the natural world, the arts and technology could merge so that the teenagers could communicate in a medium which was familiar to them. This year, facilitators from the Nerve Centre helped to engage pupils to code a game based on the expansive grounds at Baronscourt.

To celebrate the work of the Pushkin Pathway, pupils read aloud their stories and poems produced at their Creative Writing Workshop and performed a dance routine.

Following the completion of the Pathway Days Denise Mullan, Director of the Pushkin Trust said ‘The Trust is incredibly grateful to Hope for Youth NI for their kind support especially when we receive feedback as follows: Teachers have remarked that they have seen a seismic shift in their pupils and their minds and hearts are opened to new and different perspectives:

‘My pupils have forged firm friendships with our partner Pathway School, and I have watched in amazement as my pupils’ creative juices flowed freely through the workshops and they grasped the freedom to express their thoughts and feelings in a completely new way.’

Pushkin Trust

Photo Credit - Tyrone Constitution