Derry~Londonderry Heroes Project YMCA

John Muir Award For the past two months our heroes group has been completing the John Muir Award.  The  John Muir Award  is a national environmental  award  scheme. It encourages people to connect with, enjoy and care for wild places. As part of the award the group had to complete four challenges: discover, explore, conserve and share. The site our group chose to discover and explore was Brook Hall Estate in Culmore. This estate is home to a renewable energy farm and also has a walled garden, an arboretum and a wide expanse of nature to discover.  Throughout the award the group did various activities, making bird feeders, planting flower boxes, painting bird boxes and doing a litter pick. We had 3 days at the estate and on the last day we got to explore the walled garden, taking some pictures, making 'art that falls apart' and played hide and seek which was great fun!! The young people got so much out the award and have shared their experience in the vi

Fermanagh Heroes Trip On Saturday 16th of February the Heroes group went to Fermanagh to meet up with the Belfast and Fermanagh Heroes groups to explore Enniskillen. The first activity on the agenda for the day was going on a tour of Enniskillen on the Kestrel boat. For some of our group this was their first time on a boat which was exciting! On the boat tour we got to see Enniskillen Castle and we stopped off at Devenish Island and got to explore the monastic ruins. Back on dry land we went to the Westend Community Centre were we got our lunch. The chicken curry, rice and chips were delicious and heated us up after being out on the boat. After lunch we had two activities, Kangoo Jumps and Jumping Clay.  The Kangoo Jumps involved us having to put on bouncy shoes that allowed us to bounce all over the place. We started of doing some basic moves and then learned a routine! The jumping clay was much more relaxed and we got to make a key-ring of Devenish Island fr