Big Brother

Friendship reaping the benefits

Emer Gallagher

“THERE is no specific reason why a young person will join. It could be a young person who has low confidence, someone who is new to the area or may have suffered a bereavement. We encourage everybody to get involved as it is about building lasting friendships,” said Peter Duffy, who is a Project Officer with the Big Brother Big Sister programme in Mayo.

The Foróige programme that matches young people with an adult in a bid to provide extra support has been quietly developing lasting and beneficial friendships in the county since 2001.

The Big Brother Big Sister programme began in Mayo and Galway as a pilot scheme in 2001 and, due to its success in the two counties, it has spread nationwide.

“It got the attention and interest of a couple of large foundations and they agreed to funding nationally and it is now in 14 counties and it has gone from strength to strength,” said Castlebar-based Peter Duffy, who co-ordinates the initiative in Mayo along with Louise Tuffy, who is based in Ballina.

The international programme matches an adult volunteer with a young person who is between ten and 18 years of age.

“It is not designed for children with big behavioural problems, it’s for kids who need an extra bit of support. We don’t sell it as a magic pill that is going to solve all the problems because it’s not. The friendship gives the young person a role model and somebody to look up to. The volunteers meet with their match once a week for an hour-and-a-half and a friendship is developed between them.

“It has been hugely successful and most matches go beyond the year. Most of my matches are in the second or third year and the friendship usually continues into later life.”

To get involved in the programme children are often referred by parents, youth projects, schools and increasingly they ask to join themselves. “We now have a situation where the kids are talking about it among themselves and they have a friend who wants to get involved,” said Peter.

All volunteers go through an interview process before they are matched. “We will sit down with volunteers and go through questions and ask them what they hope to get out of the programme, what life experiences they have had, what would they bring to the programme, their interests and what age group they would like to be matched to. We go through all of that quite thoroughly before they’re matched. We also sit down with the young person and ask them similar questions and also speak with the parents to ensure they are comfortable with the process,” added Peter.

Studies have shown that children involved in the programme are more likely to stay in school, less likely to get involved in drugs and less likely to engage in violence.

“Our view is that everybody can benefit from this. We all grow up with role models and people we look up to and it’s about putting those structures in place,” concluded Peter.

To get involved in the programme contact

Peter Duffy on 094 9060417.

Successful beginnings for ‘The Cove’ café, Westport

Neill O’Neill

‘THE Cove’ youth café in Westport is enjoying great success in its first six months and continues to grow and develop, according to Siobhan Brennan, Project worker at ‘The Cove’.

Next Friday will see the official opening of ‘The Cove’ take place on The Fairgreen at 4.30pm, and an open invitation has been extended to the public to attend, with Mid-West Radio broadcasting live from the event from 2pm.

Addressing Westport Town Council last week, Siobhan Brennan and Sarah Mulchrone – a secondary school student who sits on ‘The Cove’ Youth Committee – outlined how Westport’s only ‘place to hang out for young people’ has become very popular with teenagers since it opened on November 1 2007.

There are now 18 fully trained and Garda-vetted volunteers at ‘The Cove’ and it is open five days a week for three hours a day, with an average of 350 visitors per month. During peak times this rises to 500, but Siobhan Brennan stressed that the facility is there to be utilised by other groups in the community when ‘The Cove’ is closed. She sincerely thanked all who had contributed to ‘The Cove’, and particularly Westport Town Council for their continued faith in and financial support for the project.

Sarah Mulchrone told the Council that ‘The Cove’ has a very comfortable atmosphere where the volunteers interact well with all youths, and ‘you don’t have to pretend to be someone else’.

She outlined that some of the activities that take place there include quiz and DVD nights and occasional raffles and draws. She also said they hope to host art and music workshops soon, and open the garden out the back for the summer and have barbeques.

“One of the best things about ‘The Cove’ is that we get to meet loads of people from other schools,” she said.

Westport’s nine town councillors all welcomed the news of progress at ‘The Cove’ and agreed that it was pleasing to see teenagers working well together and getting good publicity for themselves. Pledging their continued support, they called ‘The Cove’ ‘money well-spent’ and ‘a top-class facility which other towns could look to for inspiration’.

Cllr Margaret Adams said ‘The Cove’ could only be as good as the people who operate it and she felt that with their dedication it will continue to go from strength to strength, while Cllr Myles Staunton – who sits on ‘The Cove’ Management Committee with Cllr Brendan Mulroy – lauded the input from the youth members themselves, who he said have been ‘pushing this project from day one’.

The official opening of ‘The Cove’ will be performed by Martina Niland of ‘Once’ film fame. Martina is a daughter of Mr and Mrs Patsy Niland of Aughagower and is a past pupil of the Sacred Heart School, Westport, a school whose 600 students enjoy the facilities at ‘The Cove’ on a regular basis.