Grants were awarded on 20 March here are a few projects that have already started using the funds for their projects:

BOSS Project 'American Sports Taster Sessions'

The BOSS Project is a cross community/cross cultural project, BOSS stands for Ballyoran, Oasis and Scotch Street Youth Clubs, all based in Portadown. Our first phase of the BOSS Project kicked off in May with a 6 week American sports taster sessions, the group took part in sports such as: in-line hockey, American football and baseball.

We are now looking forward to phase 2 and 3 of the project which will look at Graffiti Art and a Media project. We would like to thank Hope for Youth for this opportunity.

Teenage Kicks

Northend United Youth FC have implemented their Teenage Kicks Program which uses football to target as its main aim that of proactive reduction in religious, social and cultural barriers that often prevent young people in Ballymena from stepping outside their community.

As the project primarily seeks to build a relationship between young people from different religions and cultures within the North of Ballymena, a number of these young people, supervised by some of the Club’s coaches, travelled to the Share Discovery Village in Lisnaskea over the weekend of 12th – 14th June for an action packed weekend residential.

The weekend consisted of cooperative team building exercises as well as a variety of adventure activities including banana boating and archery. This helped the young people to get to know other young people from the different communities and all agreed it was a crazy weekend and wished they could come back for more, sometime in the future!