Derry~Londonderry Heroes Project YMCA

As we have been stuck in the house with our families for a while we might forget to spend quality time with them. YMCA Heroes challenges you to connect with your family by having a meal together! It doesn't have to be your whole family but as long as you are not eating by yourself it will count. Take a pic and let us know how it felt to eat together!

Leave us a comment and let us know what you are thankful for today! Remember it could be something simple like watching a new t.v show or getting to sit outside in your garden. Whatever it is, we want to know. 

Hello and welcome to the first post of HEROES Project ONLINE! As we're all having to work and attend school or projects from home now we thought we'd use this space to share some ideas of activities for you to keep busy with and keep your minds active, healthy and happy. We're hoping to get our HEROES Project Facebook page up and running really soon too, for us to connect and get a part of the HEROES experience through our screens. STAY TUNED, we'll be posting some activities and challenges for you all to get involved in very soon. Be sure to let us know if you've been taking part in any activities by leaving us a comment!

Following on from last weeks session, today we explored rights and responsibilities that we have.  We watched some videos that explained what rights are and showed us some rights that we have. We then had some discussions to see if we knew more from watching the videos and challenged ourselves to match responsibilities to their rights. Our final activity to tie everything together was a Kahoot quiz which was delivered by quiz master Conal who did an excellent job reading out the questions and telling us who was in the lead!

Sunday was International Women's day, so this week the group learnt about some important women in history and looked at some gender stereotypes we might have. We watched some videos about the Suffragettes, a group of women for fought for women's right to vote, and did some quizzes to see if were paying attention. On Wednesdays session we ran a little Social experiment to challenge gender stereotypes. The young people were split into pairs and each person was given a task to complete. The twist was that one person would be doing a typical mans task and one a typical wome n's task. To decide who did which task they played rock paper scissors with the winner automatically getting the mans task. Some of the mans tasks included relaxing, working out and having a servant. Women's tasks mainly revolved around looking after a baby and doing chores such as cleaning and washing dishes. This experiment challenged the young people to think about stereotypes they mig...

Today our group visited Northland road fire station! We got to see all the different vehicles and all the equipment inside them. We were very lucky that day as we got a ride in the fire trucks and got to use the hoses! A big thank you to everyone at the station, our young people loved the experience!

Today our group went to Strand road Police Station for a visit! We learnt about what they do in our neighbourhood and got to try out some of their gear.  We even got to see the different vehicles they use, including the very important bicycles! It was a really informative day and everyone learnt a lot whilst also having fun.

Today we went on a trip to Lock N Load for a game of Nerf Wars! All the young people were kitted out with protective masks and guns and split into two teams. Everyone had loads of fun getting to shoot each other and especially the HEROES staff!  Shout out to Dale who did a terrific job keeping HEROES worker Catherine safe! 

Today we learnt about Stereotypes, the idea or belief people have about a thing or group that is based upon how they look on the outside, which may be untrue or only partly true.  The main activity was a life raft scenario where we had 4 seats left on our raft and we had 10 people left to save. The group only knew limited information about the people they could save so they were forced to be prejudiced and stereotype people. Once the final four were chosen it was time to see who they had saved and who they did not. The four people that were saved were Luis Suarez, Demi Lovato, Khloe Kardashian and Kim Jong Un! Some of the people that weren't saved included Dwayne Johnson, Justin Bieber and Prince Harry!

Today we had a guest facilitator in to tell us all about Chinese culture as it is Chinese New Year at the weekend. We learnt some facts about China, and got to try out some traditional Chinese activities like handkerchief spinning and using chopsticks. Some of the group tried on some authentic Chinese clothes and we must say they looked fabulous!  To finish the session off we had some curry and rice.

Today as part of HEROES kitchen we made cupcakes! The group split in two, with one half making chocolate cupcakes and one making vanilla cupcakes. We learnt today that it is always important to check our ovens are at the right setting, as we accidentally cooked the cupcakes under the grill for about 10 minutes!

Today we had a workshop at the YMCA with Bronagh from the Woodland trust. We made our own birdhouses, hammering nails into pieces of wood to make a home for the birds. These birdhouses will be placed in some of the local forests to make a home for our wildlife. We also helped Bronagh by planting some oak tree seedlings into planting trees. Some day these seedlings we planted will be big oak trees in our forests!

Today for HEROES Kitchen we made rainbow bread! This was a really fun bake as each young person got to make their own colour dough and then they were all combined together to make a rainbow. How cool does the finished product look! A big thumbs up from Andrew shows just how good it tasted!

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 .

For the next few sessions on a Wednesday we will be cooking and baking different things as part of HEROES Kitchen! For our first session we did the fan favourite.... Pizza! Everyone really enjoyed making their own pizzas, base and all. Alongside this we also played a game of food hygiene bingo and learnt about the different ways to stay safe and healthy when cooking and baking.  The recipe for the pizza can be found  here