Members of the Craóbh Rua Youth Project on the red carpet at the premiere of their film Escape Plans
The staff and young people at the Craóbh Rua Youth Project in Muirhevnamor are looking forward to a year as busy and proactive as 2014 has been for them. Youth worker Caroline Flanagan says: “We achieved so much in 2014, I know we can do just as much in 2015, as more young people are hoping to get involved in our project.”
The Craóbh Rua project house, which is situated on Doolargy Avenue, Muirhevnamor, provides a vital learning and meeting space for young people in the Holy Family Parish. Groups meet to participate in a range of programmes such as personal and social development, health awareness, conflict resolution and bullying. Training sessions in important life skills like communication, driver theory practice and leadership skills are carried out regularly. Young people who have attended the project have gone on to higher level training in youth work, childcare, beauty therapy and digital media.
The youth project sees informal and formal education as crucial to the development of young people. In 2014 Craóbh Rua took part in two major PEACE III projects, including the making of a short film, “Escape Plans”, with the Drogheda based film company Calipo and a Digital Arts Programme which brought together several youth groups throughout the country to explore conflict through digital art.
“Escape Plans” was devised and performed by the young people at Craóbh Rua, it tells the story of a group of friends in the run up to State exams, their dreams for the future and the very real pressures they face in their personal lives. The film premiered in Dublin with a red carpet event and was showcased in the Dundalk Youth and Drogheda Arts Festivals. It also toured the border counties through the region’s Cinemobile.
The Digital Arts Programme ran in June 2015 and covered digital film making, photography, music technology, web design, comic books and stop motion animation. This four week project included team-building residential and creative workshops and culminated in an interactive exhibition at the Dundalk Youth centre. Craóbh Rua produced a larger-than-life graphic novel which took a humorous look at the effect of conflict on friendships.
In conjunction with the Muirhevnamor Community Council’s Impact Project funded by the IFI, Craobh Rua was able to cater for double their numbers in their annual Summer Project. Past participants from Craóbh Rua were involved in supervision and showed excellent leadership skills. Flanagan says:“This had a great impact on the community, as the young people supervising from Muirhevnamor were positive role models to their younger peers”.
Due to funding cuts in the last few years the staff at Craóbh Rua has found itself trying to achieve the same amount of activities on a smaller budget and fewer work hours.
“Although we are stretched to the limit,” says Flanagan, “we strive to ensure that young people can access the facilities here and have an active role in deciding what needs direct our youth work.”
For the past nine years project staff has sought funding to expand the small property they work out of and to provide adequate space for the growing number of young people wanting to meet and work together in their own community. They are hopeful that their appeal for the backing of a building extension will be supported as they continue to provide an essential service to one of Dundalk’s more deprived areas.
