The Amazing Adventure Part 2

Hello everyone, my name is Ross and I am a Youth Ambassador for YMCA England.

I have just arrived home from part two, of a three part exchange called bridging, bonding & linking capitals... AND WHAT A WEEK IT'S BEEN!!

This is my first international conference and I must say it has been life changing.

When I started this conference I thought that my YMCA in Northumberland was the only YMCA, now I know that the YMCA is massive all over the world and I have a much better understanding on what the YMCA does globally  and it has, also, gave me a passion to work the YMCA as it is such an amazing organization which makes me very proud to work for.

Anyway, you're all probably wondering what I was doing?

So... I left Newcastle, on my own, to travel to Belfast, which was quite nerve racking for me as I hate flying, thankfully, I arrived at Belfast with out the plane pummeling into the Irish sea, so, you could say, it was a positive start to the week. I was so excited to see everyone's faces, we all bonded  so quickly in Fairthorne and even though I ad only known the group for one week, we all get on like a strong family.

When I arrived everyone was so happy to see each other and everyone was so eager and excited to know what we would be doing in Northern Ireland.

We did lots of activities through the week such as things to better ourselves as young leaders, to expand our knowledge on what the YMCA does in Northern Ireland, to educate us to be better youth workers, to learn us about the past and present of Northern Ireland, to enlighten us on how politics work in Northern Ireland and how politics affect young people, we did lots of tours... the list really does go on. Everything we did throughout the week was life changing and inspiring, but the main sessions that stood out for me were, the walking tour of the peace walls in Belfast and our visit to Stormont and our visits to YMCA Lurgan and Carrickfergus YMCA which are both YMCA's that members of our group volunteer/work at.

I really enjoyed the tour of the peace walls and the visit to Shankill Road, mainly because I was completely oblivious to any of it before this exchange. We started of with a brief history of Northern Ireland and what youth work organizations do in Northern Ireland. I learned that 10 years ago you would rarely see young people from Protestant and Catholic communities merging into one youth club, now organizations are really progressing in bringing them together which was amazing to hear but, it is still sometimes difficult as most young people don't want to forget about the past but they want to focus on a better future which is quite understandable. We then set off to Shankill Road peace walls were we signed our names on the wall and some of us wrote some peace based quotes.

We were enlightened on the history of Shankill and what went on in the past years. I really took an interest in the past conflicts and the present conflicts in Northern Ireland so much so that I overloaded our Northern Ireland participants with a million questions, they educated me on what murals were and what they meant, they told me about King William of Orange and how their is a march  for him the celebrate his victory over the Catholic king James the 2nd which still causes conflict between communities, they also explained that young people light bonfires for King Billy which have "Kill all Taigs" on the top of the bonfire Which means kill all catholics and when they are asked about why they lighting the bonfire or what is the Orange Walk for they have very little to say which says to me that the hatred for the opposite community is inbred into young people.

We then set off to Stormont where we met Arlene Foster, the First Minister of Northern Ireland. 30 minutes before we arrived to Stormont, I had no clue who Arlene was, but the Northern Ireland lads soon filled me in on who she was. It was a true honor to meet her and to be allowed to ask her a few question which she patiently answered, we got to hear what the first minister's views were on youth work in Northern Ireland which I thought was amazing.

Afterwards we got a little tour of Stormont and we were enlightened on the design of the building. We then finished with some free time in Belfast where one of the lads from Northern Ireland showed me some murals and explained what they meant, I was really interested in the murals because it was beautiful artwork that explained the culture and it also told you what community you were in. We then all had a delicious pizza hut, complemented by YMCA Ireland, then head off to Carrickfergus YMCA.

The main reason I enjoyed the visits to the other YMCA's was because I was really curious to compare them with my YMCA and to see how they bring communities together and to also see the Northern Ireland lads in action at their own YMCA's. Carrickfergus was a lovely YMCA with very energetic staff, I'd only been there 10 minutes and they already had me doing push ups and different other fitness-based activities. It was really nice to see the young people involved as most young people where I work wouldn't participate, which I am destined to change! We finished off with some food, where I tried my first Mars Bar & grape sandwich, which was quite delightful, and  A question panel where young people could compare the cultures of England, Northern Ireland & Kosovo.

The next day we set off to YMCA Lurgan, where the other half of the Northern Ireland participants volunteered/worked. It was an amazing YMCA with a slightly older crowd than Carrickfergus, we got a brief presentation on what they do then we were giving a tour of the building. It was a really spacious building with lots of activities for the young people to do such as, games consoles, pool tables, table tennis AND A CLIMBING WALL, which I obviously had to have a go of. We had delicious dinner at Lurgan and then we spent some time with the young people as volunteer youth workers, if you like, it was really good to hear their opinion on the YMCA and it was also great to explain to them what we were doing as they were all really curious.

We did tons more of stuff and I would be here for days if I blogged the whole week, but overall this exchange is changing my life for the better! They say time flies when you're having fun, well this week felt like five minutes! Next stop Kosovo!