In October YMCA Ireland held a Global Youth Work session in YMCA Lurgan for Youth Workers who are actively involved in working with young people on areas of social justice, citizenship, preparing for international travel to explore global citizen education in youth work. 

Throughout the day, the group looked at what global youth work is, its role in provoking consciousness, identifying and understanding the root causes of injustice and inequality and how to support young people to identify these. Conversations were thought provoking around the areas of what is youth work, how it aligns to the values of global citizenship and the key use of SDG’s in understanding these in the world around us. 

All activities from the day were planned and delivered to build understanding while being transferable to working with young people in varying settings to start the dialogue around issues that impact people locally, nationally and globally. These activities were engaging, skill building and opened up discussion to inequalities in gender, education, peace, poverty, sanitation, climate and more. It was inspiring to put these new tools to the test and explore with the participants, how we all see the world through different lens’ and how these are impacted from our own experiences of the world around us.

Following the training, all participants will have access to a library of resources to take away to continue learning and practice of the skills, values and knowledge that was introduced from this informative, engaging workshop. It was exciting to begin to explore this area and further deepen understanding of the impact of global youth work education through values, beliefs and compassion and we are looking forward to seeing how this impacts practice moving forward.

Aoileánn Glenn (Training & Development Officer, YMCA Ireland)

For more information about Global Youth Work please contact TJ Hourihan (Youth Advocacy officer, YMCA Ireland)