Derry~Londonderry Heroes Project YMCA

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!

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

This week our group explored identity, what makes them who they are. Each young person got to make their own identity shield which included drawings of different aspects of their identity such as their family, interests and favourite things.

Our HEROES group had a trip to the Ulster American Folk park to experience traditional Halloween festivities. For this trip the Mencap HEROES from Fermanagh and Derry~Londonderry came along as well. We got to have some tasty pancakes and learnt about different Halloween traditions in Ireland and America. The highlight was getting to carve our own pumpkins!

Check out our group doing some Ceili Dancing!

We have had lots of fun getting to know our new group through different games and activities. The HEROES staff shared some of their interests with the group and showed them how to make scones, planted succulents and made bookmarks!