Derry~Londonderry Heroes Project YMCA

Today we played lots of different Christmas games. Colm and Adam became human snowmen a we wrapped them up in toilet roll. To get more use of the toilet roll we also had a snowball fight which was lots of fun!  We ended the day with a Christmas gift game with a twist. Each young person had to roll the dice and when the got a 6 they got to choose a gift from the bag. However, all was not as it seemed as each present was wrapped to trick us into thinking that it was one thing but when it was opened it was actually something else!

Today as part of HEROES kitchen we learnt how to make chicken stir fry. The group learnt how to cut and prepare chicken and different vegetables.

Today we were invited along to Disability Sports Christmas party in the Foyle Arena. We got to try out lots of different activities like wheelchair basketball, Boccia, drums and bikes. The highlight was the big group zumba dance to some pop songs and even some christmas songs! We enjoyed a lovely lunch of sandwiches and biscuits and Conal was lucky enough to win a prize in the raffle!

Our first Playtrail group finished up today with their graduation event. We reminisced together about everything we had done and two of the young people Owen and Sarah shared some of their favourite things about the project. The group made a scrapbook together using pictures and words to share their best memories of the HEROES Project. You can view the scrapbook  here As part of the project the group received the John Muir Award, a national environmental award scheme. A short video about how they achieved this award can be found  here As part of the project the group went Zip Trekking at Oak fire adventures. This was a big challenge for a lot of the group, and we were so proud when they gave it a go. To see our adventure click  here .  We have had so much fun working with this group and will miss all their smiling faces and unique personalities. 

Today for HEROES kitchen we made smoothies. We made two smoothies following recipes from the internet and then we made a special HEROES smoothie. The HEROES smoothie was the groups own smoothie creation which had fruit, vegetables and chocolate in it. Everyone tried at least one smoothie, and as you can see from the pictures we got a lot of thumbs up!

Our group discussed different ways we can relax and de-stress such as sleeping, playing games and exercising. We tried out some different de-stressing activities, including making moon dough and scented. We even did a Christmas meditation!  The Christmas meditation was a favourite and the link to the YouTube video we used is  Here .