National Youth Day

One of the few events that can get hundreds of young people wide awake at ungodly hours on a Saturday morning.

Held in Croke Park on Saturday 19th May, the event was hosted by the national exchange bureau Léargas with a view to showing the various opportunities for youth groups under the new European “Youth in Action” Plan, which aims to promote youth initiatives, exchanges, job shadowing and youth democracy features and provides funding to work with like-minded groups across Europe.

Ireland’s National Youth Day is a precursor to European Youth Week that will be held in Brussels from the 3rd-10th of June, where delegates from all over Europe will be taking part in sessions on such topics as participation, citizenship and cultural diversity, as well as a debate with members of the European Commission, with all the findings of the week forming a crucial part of the EU’s future policies on young people.

The day started at half nine, with youth groups from all over Ireland represented: The Copernicus Project from Athlone, Tuam Youth Café Project in Galway, Bray Youth Café in Wicklow, Roscommon Youth Club, The Base in Ballyfermot, Swords/Baldoyle Youth Service and numerous others were in attendance.

All through the day there were workshops on the different aspects of the Youth in Action Plan, as well as dance workshops and the Galway Circus Project hosting very popular sessions. The day’s pace was pretty frantic, with something going on all the time, and the energy of the day was definitely an undoubted highlight.

I had a pretty unique experience of the day, as I was heading a reporting team of nine young people from all over the country, talking to the people taking part and the organisers of the day. Along with the very capable reporters and our trusty, long-suffering cameraman John running around like we were West Wing Characters, we went round all the workshops and sessions, getting a flavour of what was going on during the day.

The full extent of our findings will be available in a feature-packed DVD (available in the foyer and in all good video stores) but in the end of day review the main thoughts of the reporters were how enthusiastic the young people were: enthusiastic about participating, enthusiastic about learning about the opportunities available to them. They also stated that days like these were a fine example of the great work young people can do in their communities and beyond and there should be more events like National Youth Day.

The findings of the day will be taken to Brussels and reported back to the European delegation. Some of the most interesting findings were the result of a vote taken on the issues most important to young people. At the start of the day, everyone wrote down what they considered their most important issue, all of which placed on a board for all to see.

The issues were wide-ranging and occasionally bizarre, from better local facilities to making cats less bossy (you heard me) but the ones put to vote were: legalising gay marriage, promoting human rights, improving local recreational facilities and granting local spaces for graffiti. After a very strong turnout (77%, thank you very much) and a very close ballot, legalising gay marriage came out as the winner, closely followed by improving local facilities.

That outcome should get some debate going in the near future, that’s for sure…

By: Paddy Duffy