Promoting Youth Development

Promoting Healthy Living

Promoting Community Engagement


What's happening at YMCA

30 September 2019

New £1.4m YMCA opened in Portadown

YMCA Portadown have operated on their current Jervis Street site since 1957 with their original building serving the community for 61 years. Following an announcement for a capital grant in 2013 YMCA Portadown embarked on an exciting new build project. Fast forward to 2019 and Portadown YMCA is pleased to see the completed building in […]

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9 July 2019

YMCA175

During the month of June, YMCAs throughout the world joined together to celebrate the movement’s 175th Birthday by committing to do 175 minutes of service in their local communities. In Ireland, local YMCAs were involved in a wide range of creative activities including random acts of kindness, community clean ups, fundraising events for other charities […]

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15 May 2019

Outside In ..

Great to see a new resource aimed at youth workers engaging with young people who express hateful speech and/or behaviour. The resource produced by NYCI, was developed by a number of youth work practitioners, including Zen from YMCA Cork. Congratulations to all involved in producing this valuable resource. Training available from NYCI www.youth.ie

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2 April 2019

M-power celebrates

Young people from all of the YMCAs participating in the Peace IV Funded m-power programme gathered in Belfast to mark the completion of its first year. The focus was on hearing the stories of young people whose lives had been enriched as a result of their participation in it. Geraldine Stinton, co-ordinator, paid tribute to […]

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13 February 2019

YMCA Celebrates 175 years

This is an important year for the YMCA movement as it celebrates 175 years of service to young people. To celebrate a major event is planned for the Excel centre London in August. In Ireland this is also an important year as we join with our colleagues in YMCA Dublin to mark its 170th anniversary […]

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10 December 2018

YMCA Practitioners Conference

Great to have so many YMCA staff and volunteers attend the recent Practitioners’ Conference in Swords where the main speaker was Prof Laura Lundy from Queens University. The main focus was on looking at the Lundy model of youth participation and reflection on how it is being used in YMCA programmes across the island. Follow […]

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8 November 2018

YMCA Young Leaders Meet in Greenhill

Young leaders from local YMCAs throughout the island met recently in Greenhill YMCA Outdoor Learning Centre to share their experiences of being a young leader in the YMCA. They also looked at developing a Youth Charter for the movement before looking at ways in which their voice could be heard more effectively in governance and […]

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19 October 2018

STEP 30 Celebrations

YMCA’s STEP programme has just celebrated a remarkable milestone recently when it completed 30 years of serving young people.  Young people, parents, trustees and staff joined events in Letterkenny, Dublin and Cork to hear the stories of young people who have been involved in programmes over the past three decades. A highlight of the celebrations […]

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10 September 2018

YMCA Young Reporters Interview Deputy UN Secretary General

YMCA’s Young Reporters interviewed  Amina JMohammed UN Deputy Secretary General on her recent visit to Ireland as part of her campaign to promote the Sustainable Development Goals among young people. A podcast of the interview as part of the YMCA ConversationZ series will be made available shortly

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21 August 2018

Learning from Exchanges

International exchanges  can provide valuable learning experiences for young people and for organisations. In this blog for Leargas, James Bilson Coordinator of YMCA STEP programme in Cobh  reflects on some of the learning from a recent partnership with an organisation in Iceland.

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