Derry~Londonderry Heroes Project YMCA

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. 

Our HEROES group went on a one night residential to Woodhall last week. The group did loads of different activities such as crate stacking, team games, archery and orienteering. We even made smores over a campfire!

Welcome to the Heroes Project!  From now until the end of March we are very lucky to have again got the chance to work with an amazing group of young people from The Hub at the Playtrail. Our first session went really well and we got to learn about each other. We did some icebreakers and had loads of fun. Robert shared one of his interests, baking, and the group got to make and most importantly taste, delicious scones. We are very excited to be working with another group of amazing young people, and we can't wait to see what we will get up to during our time together. 

YMCA Visit The Heroes recently enjoyed a trip to the YMCA to make use of the facilities out there. They played a basketball game called hotspot with Aurora coming out as the champion twice. They also played boccia a Paralympic sport with no Olympic equivalent which is similar to bowls. In the kitchen the group got to make fifteens, a Northern Ireland delicacy consisting of digestive biscuits, marshmallows and glacé cherries mixed in condensed milk and coated in coconut. The games room provided a chill out space, and the group got to play the PlayStation and try out Guitar Hero on the Wii. 

Walls Scavenger Hunt Adventure The YMCA Heroes group were out and about exploring the city for two sessions in October. The group followed an interactive scavenger hunt and faced many challenges including taking pictures, answering questions and following directional arrows. Whilst on the adventure the group got to learn about their city as they stopped at notable sights such as the Guildhall, Walkers Plinth and the Courthouse. We also did a bit of geocaching and found one hidden at St Augustine's Church. As it was quite a cold day we stopped off at the Quirky Raven café for some hot drinks!  On our second day out we started at the Diamond War Memorial and learnt how old Austin's department store is. We went into the garden of reflection and stopped at the Honesty Café as it was raining and we got to enjoy buns and a drink.  

Heroes Trip to Belfast On Friday the 20th of September the YMCA heroes group and the Mencap group went on a trip to Belfast to visit Stormont and W5. As part of our group work sessions we had discussed how laws are made and on the trip we got to see where they are made in Stormont. We took part in a tour of the building and got to see the chambers where the assembly members sit. It was a beautiful day with blue skies all around so we ate our lunch outside at the new play park on the Stormont estate. To end our visit to Belfast we went to W5 and had a fantastic time learning and discovering. 

Team Building Team Building is an essential part of forming a group, as it helps build relationships and allows the group to get to know each other and their strengths and weaknesses. Throughout the programme we have used many different activities and games to promote team building.  One team building activity was tower building. The big group was split into two smaller groups and these groups were tasked with designing the biggest tower out of the resources that they had. One group had newspaper and tape whilst the other had spaghetti and marshmallows. The teams had to work together and discover the best way to build their tower. When doing the challenge different roles emerged in the group with some people coming up with ideas and others building the structure.  Similarly the egg drop challenge saw the young people working as a team to design the best protection for an egg to prevent it from cracking when it was dropped from a height. Again, the group was spl...

End of Summer Scheme Party This week we had our last session before we ended for a summer break. As it was our last session we decided to plan a fun filled session. In the morning we had our very own ice cream parlour and we all got two scoops of ice cream and toppings! We also had glitter tattoos and a disco going on at the same time. In the afternoon we made smores, which was a first for a lot of our group. The group learnt two different ways to make smores ; the proper way and the easy way. The proper way was a plain digestive biscuit with chocolate and a marshmallow, and the easy way was a chocolate digestive with a marshmallow. Once we had this stage done, the biscuit creations were put in the oven to allow the marshmallow and chocolate to melt. When they were read they came out of the oven and another biscuit was placed on top and squished down to make a delicious smore!!

Food around the World Our Heroes group has been exploring different cultures around the world through games and crafts. This week our theme was food. The young people got to taste different foods such as samosas, onion bhaji's and chorizo and guess where they were from. We also had a guess the food quiz and a what food is in the box game!

Heroes at Learning Disability Pride 2019 On Saturday 22nd of June we made our way up to Carrickfergus to attend Learning Disability Pride and take part in the parade. As we arrived in Carrickfergus the sun was shining and there was great excitement in the air as different groups from all over the country came together to celebrate learning disabilities.  We wore Tie Dye t-shirts in the parade which we designed ourselves and no one could have missed us as we were so bright and colourful. The parade route passed the sea front and the castle, and with brilliant blue skies overhead we couldn't have had a better day out!

Photo Scavenger Hunt Our Derry~ Londonderry YMCA group had loads of fun completing a photo scavenger hunt. Can you guess what each challenge was? 

Inclusion Fest Our Derry~ Londonderry YMCA staff team were very privileged to be invited to Inclusion Fest, run by Liberty Consortium who we are delivering our project with. It was a great day out promoting the Heroes Project and getting to see all the talents of our young people!

John Muir Share The final challenge of the John Muir award was to share our adventures! For this challenge we went to Ness Woods and took lots of pictures of the plants and scenery which we will use to make a video documenting our John Muir award adventures. We have some really good photographers in the group and photo credits for the two flower pictures above go to Jamie! As well as taking lots of pictures we also did some geo-caching and found two caches.  Geocaching is an outdoor recreational activity, in which participants use a Global Positioning System receiver or mobile device and other navigational techniques to hide and seek containers, called "geocaches" or "caches", at specific locations marked by coordinates all over the world.

John Muir - Conserve To help us complete the conserve challenge we had Bronagh in from the Woodland trust. Together with Bronagh we made bird houses and our DIY skills were put to the test as we hammered together the different parts. As we were out at the YMCA for this we hung one of the bird houses up out there and then we went to Ervey Woods to hang up some more. Whilst one group hung up the bird houses another group stayed behind and planted Oak seedlings into plant pots. For the previous two sessions we were out discovering and exploring wild places near to us and this week we made sure to give something back and help keep our wild places flourishing!

John Muir Award-Explore One of the challenges of John Muir Award was to explore a wild place, and what better way to do this than Ziplining!! We went Ziplining at Oakfire Adventures based in the Faughan Valley, near to Burntollet woods which we visited last week. Most of the group , if not all of them (staff included!), were scared and nervous about doing the ziplining as they had never done something like that before. It was really great to see everyone giving it a go and we are so proud of everyone who did it and stepped out of their comfort zones.

John Muir Award Our Derry~ Londonderry YMCA Heroes group have taken on the challenge of 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. We have been out and about getting some fresh air and discovering local forests and our first outing was to Burntollet Woods just outside of Drumahoe. The 24ha (59-acre) Burntollet Wood lies next to Ness County Country Park in the Faughan Valley. Burntollet wood is a new wood as it is less than 10 years old. From this young woodland you can enjoy stunning views over the beautiful Faughan Valley with its mosaic of newly planted and ancient woodland, and rolling pastures.  We have loads more activities planned on our journey to complete the award so keep an eye on our blog f...

May Update http://online.pubhtml5.com/yftw/hnrt/ Click the link  to see what we have been up to for the past couple of months!!

A New Beginning   Phase 2 of the Heroes Project has begun! From the beginning of February we have been working with a new group of young people from The Hub. We are very lucky to have again got the change to work with an amazing group of Young people as part of the Heroes Project. The first few weeks were spent getting to know each other and we played loads of games like the ball catching game, the linking game and sweet questions. By getting to know each other we were able to find out things we had in common, and to demonstrate this we made a 'Web of connections', passing a ball of wool to people who shared something in common with us.  An important part of working in a group is communication and teamwork. We did a minefield challenge, whereby the group had to get from one side of the room to the other without standing on a mine. After this the group was split into two teams and tasked with building the tallest towers out of the specific materials th...