Billingham YCW Group ACT To Help Local Foodbank

Billingham YCW Group have again been in action to raise money for their local foodbank, following a successful fundraising effort by the young leaders.

St Thomas of Canterbury parish hosted an afternoon tea event, organised and ran by the young people of the group on the Feast of the Assumption. It came after the group had seen a story detailing how Billingham foodbank was running low on several essential items.

The fundraiser collected over £150 for the foodbank and the young people decided to buy as many needed items with the money raised and deliver it to the foodbank personally. Items included: UHT milk, men's toiletries and other tinned foodstuffs. 

Ben Sinclair, member of the Billingham YCW Group and current National Secretary, said: "We were really pleased with the response from our parish and happy to see the amount of items we have been able to buy go to a worthy cause. It is really important that we now reflect on how we can continue to develop our Christian leadership on this and many other issues we all face."

Past YCW Members Meet At HQ

Following the success of the 80th Year celebrations, the YCW has been building stronger links with many of our past members.

These members have offered to volunteer across a range of areas in order to help support the work of the movement.

After a series of informal meetings, the past members met together at the YCW HQ in Trafford Park to get to grips with what needs to be done, as well as share their own experiences and expertise with the National Team.

The areas that were identified included: Finance and fundraising - this is particularly important to any charity, but especially because the YCW relies entirely on donations and grants to run the entire national movement, as well as contribute to the ICYCW around the world. The group will be looking at how they can help write bids and encourage regular donations from other past members.

Communication - the National Team explained that we had recently launched a new online newsletter - to be distributed monthly - and asked for feedback about what past members might be interested in hearing about. Suggestions were made about sharing more of our work with workplaces, trade unions and those issues young people face in employment.

Supporting existing and setting up new groups - there was a discussion about how past members could support the development of groups across England and Wales. In particular, the need to find and train new adult companions to help groups set up.

Fr John Marsland, National Chaplain, said: "Overall, the meeting was a fruitful one and we would like to thank all those past members who gave up their time to attend, but also to offer continued support. We will make sure to keep up this network and build upon it going forward."

New Groups Being Developed Following Return Visit to Stockton

Earlier this year, the YCW National Team visited the North East to catch up with existing groups and support the growth of new ones. From this, 3 parishes in Stockton were approached about how they could help with this and invited the YCW to speak at their Sunday masses.

Marc Besford, National Training and Development Worker, returned this month to Stockton to share what they YCW is and does, and how we are developing young Christian leaders. He spoke about his own experience, saying: "I first set up a group in my own parish in Billingham three years ago and I have witnessed them grow in confidence and in faith. As leaders one example of authentic Christian action they undertook using the method was to help the local foodbank.

They identified that the growing use of the foodbank was a major issue and, having done some research, found that it wasn’t just people on benefits that used it but people who were in work and on low incomes - many of whom had families and struggled to feed them.

By then looking at Matthews Gospel and the words of Jesus - “For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink” - they then spoke at all the Masses over the weekend and collected items for a month. The group took the collection down personally and helped with bagging up some of them items for families and they learnt that it wasn’t as easy as people may think."

By sharing this experience, it is important for young people themselves giving witness to being leaders, inspired by the message of the Gospel. 

As a result of the talks over the weekend, the parishes identified 3 new adult companions who could lead new groups from next month.

Youth Loneliness Training for YCW Adult Companions

Loneliness amongst young people is a growing issue of concern and the impact of it on the mental health of young people has been raised numerous times throughout the YCW National Action campaign, MIND! The Gap.

Research in April 2018, found that almost 10% of younger people, between the ages of 16-24 were “always” or often lonely, more than 3 times higher than people aged 65 and over.

In 2017/2018 the Childline charity for young people, delivered 4,636 counselling sessions on loneliness with young people. The youngest was 10 years old.

In Manchester, over the past 18 months there have been over 145 suicides by young people aged between 10-20 years old. In the UK, suicide is the leading cause of death in young people.

In light of this, the YCW put on some training for Adult Companions on this topic.

The session was run by Niell Watkins, a semi-retired psychologist, who has worked all his life in community education, project innovation and planning. He also has extensive experience in counselling, natural disaster relief projects and poverty alleviation projects.

Niell runs a programme called "Loneliness Connects Us All" and explores how our shared Christian faith can inspire us to do more to help alleviate loneliness.

From the very beginning in the Book of Genesis, God says: "It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him." And then as Jesus sent out his disciples, He reassures them that as they go out into the world, "I will be with you always, yes, even until the end of time".

The attendees shared some of their own thoughts and experiences of working with young people in the YCW and discussed how they can best use this training to support YCW and IMPACT Leaders.

Marc Besford, who organised the training session, welcomed the chance to raise this important issue. He said: "Since we started our National Campaign on young people and mental health, we have been overwhelmed by the response. Loneliness is certainly a major factor in harming our mental health and young people are telling us that not enough is being done to address it. Hopefully this eye-opening training session will help our adult companions support our young leaders and we thank Niell for his hard work and eloquence on this topic."

Leeds School And College Faith Day

Last month, the YCW attended a Faith Day for schools and colleges in Leeds to help run a workshop on the YCW and our current national on mental health and young people called MIND! The Gap.

The day was held at Notre Dame Catholic Sixth Form College in Leeds and saw input from other charities, such as Missio and CAFOD, and discussed issues around homelessness and the environment.

It began with a presentation from the Franciscan Sisters, who facilitated the day, which gave the young people an opportunity to reflect on their Christian vocations and what being a follower of Christ means for their lives.

This allowed the students to think more about how they can live out the calling of God to love one another and treat others as ourselves. But it also meant that as many of them moved on from education that they took the Gospel message with them in their work lives too.

After this Marc Besford, National Training and Development Worker for the YCW, gave a short presentation about the YCW's work and encouraged the young people to learn more about how they can be leaders and make a difference in their own lives, local communities and the wider world.

Following this, the day ended with Mass and Adoration of the Blesses Sacrament.

YCW Collaboration With Caritas Salford

Last month, members of the YCW National Team met with representatives from Caritas Salford to help support a range of Task and Finish Groups. 

The groups covered topics that had been identified earlier in the year by a diverse group of charities and local parish representatives. They included: our role in advocacy - such as on mental health and justice & peace - and how we can better represent and connect with young people.

The YCW were asked to help share our joint missions around advocacy and young people, including a discussion about the SEE, JUDGE and ACT method, the art of accompaniment and leadership building programme.

Marc Besford, National Training and Development Worker, attended the groups  and shared his thoughts on the projects: "This was a fantastic opportunity to help support local efforts across Salford Diocese. We have our HQ based here and a growing number of groups, so to be able to work even closer and share what the YCW does is something I really welcome."