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The Main Area in which YI works
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In its fourteen years of youth work in West Belfast, Youth Initiatives’ staff have witnessed first-hand the increasing tendency toward long-term self- and socially-destructive behaviour. YI takes a holistic, preventative and long-term approach to enable these young people to become confident and get equipped to avoid the traps of a peer culture that encourages drug, solvent and alcohol abuse, anti-social behaviour, paramilitary and other harmful activities.
EVIDENCE OF NEED
The young people in the Colin Area are faced with social and economic deprivation. Below we have highlighted some of these issues:
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The YI Project Centre is situated in Poleglass, West Belfast, one of the largest estates in Europe. The Colin Area (Poleglass, Twinbrook & Lagmore) is a BT17 area with a population of 27,000 (14,040 are young people) and marked by generational unemployment, a destructive peer environment, widescale teenage pregnancy, and strong paramilitary recruitment and activity.
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Geographic Catchment Areas – defined by postcode, and housing estate or road:
BT17 – Poleglass, Twinbrook and Lagmore housing estates of West Belfast
BT4 – Newtownards Road and Holywood Road areas of East Belfast.
An audit of youth provision in the Colin Area of West Belfast (by the local Community Forum) showed that of the 14,040 individuals under 25, 60% grow up in single parent families.
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Census figures showed that 41.3% of Twinbrook adults, and 35.4% of Colin Glen (Poleglass) adults were claiming unemployment benefit. This is why pre-employment skills training plays a key role in our work with 15-18 year olds through the LifeLine project.
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In addition the young people targeted have minimal or no contact with communities outside their own, and no experience or appreciation of cultural diversity.
A key focus for YI Projects was identified by the principal of St. Colm's High School who confirmed that the main thing her pupils need is: ‘development in self-confidence and pre-employment skills’
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Target groups of young people from which YI beneficiaries come:
1. Children in poverty. Young people from the BT17 and BT4 Government ‘TSN: Target Social Need’ areas are described as ‘being a targeted social need’. Twinbrook in BT17 ranks in the top 10% most deprived wards in Northern Ireland (NISRA, 2001). The same Social Need research puts Poleglass young people in the top 7% of most deprived wards in the District. Poleglass children are in the top 2% of deprivation according to the ‘child poverty’ score.
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2. Vulnerable young people including children of ex-prisoners: young victims of sectarian mindset.
3. Disaffected teenagers, including young people in disadvantaged communities alienated from democratic or educational processes through growing up in an environment that nurtures anti-authority attitudes, exhibited in disregard for teachers, police and parents. |
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4. Marginalised groups – young people experiencing educational or economic exclusion: YI participants need character development & employability skills because they are often intimidated when going for jobs & fear prejudicial treatment due to a ‘Social Need Area’ address.
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Gender and ethnicity:
The 270 young people that YI works with each year well represent the areas in which they live. Half are female, and half are male. Participants from West Belfast are almost 100% catholic, while participants from East Belfast are almost 100% protestant. The ethnicity of participants reflects the population of the estates where we work, therefore, while a vast majority are white, we have had members of Indian and African origin join our projects.
While YI does not specifically aim its programmes for those with disabilities, young people with disabilities are welcome.
One commonality for these young people is that they all live in communities that are very segregated, and socially and economically disadvantaged. For example, all the West Belfast beneficiaries live in exclusively catholic/republican neighbourhoods, and likewise the East Belfast participants live in primarily protestant/loyalist neighbourhoods
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