Belvedere Youth Club

Founded 1918. Registered Charity No 3926 

 

Thompsons have partnered with the Belvedere Youth Club charity for a number of years. We recently attended an event hosted by Belvedere Youth Club where we presented a cheque for €40,000.  We would like to note a special thanks to all of our insurer partners and clients who have generously donated to the Club. The Club was founded in 1918. It is one of the most popular projects in Inner City Dublin for children providing an After Schools Programme, Sports Programme, Youth Theatre Group and Summer Camp. Anyone wishing to learn more about the Club can visit http://belvedereyouthclub.ie/

 

The Belvedere Youth Club (BYC) is the oldest youth club in the State, operating since its foundation in 1918 as the Belvedere Newsboys Club to tackle the issue of poverty among newspaper sellers. Acting out of its Lower Buckingham Street premises, the club aims to keep children off the streets and discourage them from engaging in anti social behaviour in an area which is well documented as having a multiplicity of social problems such as criminal involvement of all ages, drug and alcohol abuse above the national average, generational unemployment (with youth unemployment on the increase) while early school leaving and low educational achievement are regarded as the norm. The area also has one of the highest incidences of HIV and AIDS related illnesses in the country and one of the highest percentages of single parent households.

 

The club provides a range of activities and programmes for some 400 children and young people from the North Inner City aged from seven to twenty plus. BYC is a registered charity and a voluntary service. In order to continue to provide this lifeline to Inner city children and youths, BYC needs to raise €200,000 a year for the next five years. This funding must be raised through voluntary means and will go towards the following programmes:

Supported by FAS through a community employment project this programme caters for up to 130 children per day and provides a variety of structured activities for the youth who attend directly after school.

Arts, crafts, ceramics, computer, dance, music & drama classes are provided as well as various sporting activities & homework classes.

Additionally the programme provides up to 80 hot meals per day which are served to children who arrive at the youth club directly after school. This is often the only hot meal these children will receive during the course of a day and is an important part of the after schools programme.

Commencing in September each year and running for approximately seven months, the theatre group rehearses and stages a musical ending in two sell out shows to a combined audience of 1,000 people.

Drama workshops, singing lessons and chorography classes are prominent activities for all concerned and older members participate in the production of the props and the back drops required for the annual show.

The stage activities culminate each year with an annual singing competition which is run to an X- Factor format with acts being voted off each week until winners in each age category have been chosen.  

Sports coaching in a wide range of disciplines including soccer, basketball, table tennis, and track & field were a normal feature of the sports programme until recently. Unfortunately due to the difficult economic climate presently, funding for a fulltime sports coach was lost in December 2010 and as a result sporting activities have been severely curtailed.

A direct consequence of this loss is that all outside competitions and participation in the annual community games have been cancelled until such time as BYC can afford to employ a full time sports co-ordinator for this programme.

Unfortunately in recent years the holiday has had to be cut from five days to four due to funding & staffing shortages.

A similar residential week-ends programme to this centre has also been dropped due to lack of funds.

BYC operates a special programme on behalf of the Irish Youth Justice Service which attempts to address the issue of juvenile crime in the local Community. The N.I.C.K.O.L. project aims to identify, support and work with young people and their families. The majority of the boys on this programme have come to the attention of the Gardai and have been referred to the project through the Garda juvenile liaison system.

Working closely with families, schools and other relevant professionals, members are encouraged and supported to remain in school and participate in cognitive behaviour training (CBT) and applied behavioural analysis (ABA) 

 

Matt Redmond, Honorary Alderman of the Birmingham City Council, who attended the club in the 1940s and 1950s and went on from humble beginnings to be awarded an MBE says “My memories of the ‘Belvo’, are ones of joy and happiness. I will always give credit to the Belvedere Newsboys’ Club for all they did, not only for me but all who lived in the inner city