Solas Project

The lovely weather this week has us reminiscing about what a great summer we had across the project! ☀️
Here’s one final summer dump, featuring:

🌊 Water sports with our Liberate groups
🌿 A trip to the Botanical Gardens with Junior After Schools
🚆 A Liberate Girls trip to Belfast
🏖️ A beach day at Portmarnock with Senior After Schools
🏕️ Loads of fun on residentials

A showcase of some of the excellent haircuts by our trainee barbers at The Yard over the past term!

It’s been fantastic to see their skills develop, along with their confidence 💈✂️

We’re hiring! 📣
We are looking for a Youth Justice Worker to join our Compass Programme, supporting young people in custody and in the community following release.

We’re looking for someone with experience in youth work, youth justice or related services who is compassionate, resilient and committed to working creatively with young people.

See the full role description and requirements here: https://solasproject.com/job-opportunities

We were so excited to have Phoebe Schecter join one of our Flag Football sessions while she was in Dublin for the Aer Lingus College Football Classic, sharing some tips and pointers with our young people! 🏈
And, of course, we had to get her approval of our new team name… and we’re delighted to officially introduce:

✨ The Solas Shiners! ✨

Thanks again, Phoebe, for your encouragement, advice, and for helping us get our team ready for the season!

“If we want to see change after the horrors of the last few weeks, we need to take road safety seriously. This not only means holding people accountable for dangerous behaviour, it means putting real actions in place to prevent young people from reaching the point where reckless driving becomes their source of identity, belonging and achievement.

Punishment is often too late to save lives.

When the stakes are this high, prevention has to be worth trying.”

In the wake of the recent tragedy on the M9, our Justice Manager, Ashling Golden, reflects on her research into car crime and dangerous driving among young people. In our latest blog, she explores the factors that can perpetuate this behaviour, from social disadvantage and masculinity to risk-taking, belonging and the pursuit of status. She also looks at practical steps that can be taken to prevent young people from becoming involved in the first place.

Read the full blog here: solasproject.com/blog-posts/there-are-no-winners-what-we-need-to-understand-about-young-people-joyriding-and-reckless-driving

“Horses are good to be around for your mindset, they’re good therapy, same as dogs, they really match your energy.”

“The horse riding sessions helped me build my confidence. I thought I wouldn’t be able to even walk around with the horses but now I can do a trot and all. It turns out the horses were really kind and being around them helped me feel more comfortable and have a calmer mind and I’ve felt happier since. It gave me something to look forward to.”

As our young people head back to school, it’s a lovely time to reflect on some of the highlights from the summer.

For some of our Liberate young people, horse riding offered more than the chance to try something new. It gave them an opportunity to build confidence, spend time outdoors, find a sense of calm and have something to look forward to each week.

We hope they can carry some of that confidence and calm with them as they start a new school year. 🐴💛

Our Annual Team Week gives us the chance to step away from the day-to-day, look ahead, make plans, have the big conversations, and remind ourselves what brings us together in the first place.

This year, we were lucky enough to spend an overnight at East Coast Adventure who have hosted residentials for us before. Alongside the planning and reflection, our team got out on the water, hit the trails, and made the most of the saunas and cold plunges.

A good reminder that looking after the team is part of looking after the work.

A recent report by the National Youth Council of Ireland and TASC paints a stark picture of youth unemployment, highlighting the barriers many young people face in accessing education and employment.

As one of our Youth Workers shared:
“Getting more young people to stick with education is key to changing the employment landscape in the city’s most economically deprived areas but the supports need to be there to counter the more immediate pressure on many to contribute to household incomes.”

A thought-provoking read on the challenges facing young people, and the importance of ensuring the right supports are there to help them build brighter futures.

‘I think only one of my friends has a job’: Youth unemployment report paints bleak picture Report suggests teenagers are disproportionately affected by failure of jobs market to fully bounce back

It’s been a fantastic summer of fishing trips across both our Liberate and Rua programmes! 🎣

These trips are a great opportunity for young people to get out in nature, spend time together and learn some new skills along the way. Some of the lads have described the trips as both an adventure and a peaceful day out, and they’re already looking forward to going again!

A special thank you to Southside Angling for providing all the bait for our most recent fishing trip. We really appreciate your support!

🏈 What happens when everyone starts from the same place?

In the article below, Beyond Sport shares how NFL Flag has become a new way for us to build confidence, connection and leadership with young people.

Because almost everyone was learning the sport for the first time, it created a genuine level playing field, giving young people the opportunity to try something new, get involved and discover they could be good at something they’d never tried before.

NFL Flag & Solas Project Equalize The Playing Field in Ireland - Beyond Sport Understand the impact of flag football youth development on Ireland's youth, creating community and confidence through sport.