March 2006

Youth activities

Every Tuesday night I help to run activity sessions for children aged 10 - 14. The people who come to our youth activities are from a local housing estate. There is nowhere for them to go and nothing for them to do. There are no other clubs like this in the area, so they all enjoy coming and get involved in all the activities. This housing estate has a high crime rate, but since our youth activities have been running, the crime rate in the area has decreased on a Tuesday night. It shows that they need somewhere to go and things to do.

Each and every week we have pool, table tennis, cards, dominos, board games and darts. We add to these by offering other activities such are treasure hunts, quizzes, model car making, cards for various occasions, cross stitching, baking, pizza making, but my favourite thing is food tasting. We have tried it twice and the first time only 3 people would try it, but the second time 20 tried it. It has to be one of the funniest experiences I have had there. We had about 15 different foods such as pumpkin seeds, marmite, bread, pickled eggs, beetroot, chocolate and sardines. The children were really good sports, as they all tried every thing!!!!!! They had a numbered list of 25 foods and they had to try to decide what food they had just eaten and write the number down. Obviously we needed a bin, as there was a lot of food put in it!!!!!!

We have a snack included in the price every week. This can be anything from making your own sandwiches, wraps, pizza, to beans on toast, chip and chicken nuggets. We try to include them in choosing their snack, by asking a couple of weeks in advance what they would like. We also have free fruit out on the tables, which proves very popular - it just disappears in a flash. So as much as possible, we are offering them healthy food options.