Mayo volunteers attend national Foróige conference
SEVENTEEN volunteers from Mayo have attended the national Foróige Volunteer Conference.
Representing the county were Shirley Mooney, Mary Timoney, Faela McEllin, Mary Ryan, Andrea Gallagher, Majella Kenny, Walburg Ruane, Sharon Reilly, Katie Duffy, Máire O’Neill, Oliver Devanney, Ann Donoghue, Pat Rushe, Sean Keady, Tommie Horan and Clare Loftus.
Foróige has over 6,500 volunteers working in its 650 clubs, 160 projects and programmes, including Leadership for Life, Be Healthy Be Happy, the Network for Teaching Entrepreneurship (NFTE), and the Aldi Foróige Youth Citizenship Programme, which celebrates its 50th anniversary this year. Foróige volunteers are essential to the organisation’s engagement with over 50,000 young people year after year.
This was the 49th annual Foróige Volunteers Conference, with 250 delegates from 22 counties enjoying a wide variety of guest speakers, workshops and social events aimed at exchanging ideas to continue Foróige volunteers phenomenal work throughout the country.
The theme of the conference this year was ‘Foróige Volunteers – preparing young people for a changing world’ and it also explored the future direction of youth work and best practice within the sector.
Psychologist and author Shane Martin gave the conference keynote address on the theme of happiness.
David O’Reilly, Foróige chairperson, speaking at the conference, said: “Volunteerism has a very special place in Irish culture. As a nation, we are good at volunteering, it’s in our DNA and part of what makes us who are.
“For 50 years, the Irish government has entrusted youth work to volunteer-led organisations and we have not let them down. This is as it should be, it is how youth work operates at its best, not simply a cheap way of keeping young people off the streets, but a unique and distinctly Irish way of enabling young people to develop to be their best selves.”
* Picture at the conference were, at front, from left: Shirley Mooney, Mary Timoney, Faela McEllin, Mary Ryan, Andrea Gallagher, Majella Kenny and Walburg Ruane. Second row: Sharon Reilly, Katie Duffy and Máire O’Neill. Third row: Oliver Devanney, Ann Donoghue, Pat Rushe, Sean Keady, Tommie Horan and Clare Loftus.