Ten young people from Swansea are heading to Belfast next month as part of a Celtic youth exchange project.
The group, who are aged between 14 and 21, have been working with their counterparts in North Wales, Eire and Northern Ireland through an intercultural exchange programme aimed at exploring areas such as culture, language, religion and sense of belonging within Celtic communities.
As part of the two-year Celtic 4 Corners Youth Exchange, a series of visits are planned between the groups of young people from Swansea, Conwy in North Wales, Cork City in Eire and Co Down in Northern Ireland.
The Swansea group will all be heading to Belfast on July 4th for the first leg of the exchange programme.
The group hail from across the city and county and became involved through a partnership between Swansea Council’s Youth Service and Menter Iaith Abertawe.
Paul Worsfold from Swansea Council’s Youth Service explained why the project was important.
“The young people have chosen to make a two year commitment in their own time to improving links between these Celtic communities. Obviously this has a particular resonance between Northern and Southern Ireland and North & South Wales”.
Angharad Roberts at Menter Iaith said the programme would help the young people involved to develop a variety of skills.
“They will develop skills including planning and organisation, developing programmes, team building, communication, I.T. skills, intercultural awareness, leadership, and presentations. These will all be achieved through workshops and tasks that will be covered throughout the programme over the two year period.
“The learning components will be recognised with a ‘Youthpass’ certificate. Youthpass is a new way for participants in the “Youth in Action” Programme to describe what the young people have done and to show what they have learnt.”
The project has been funded through Causeway British Irish Exchange Youth Programme which is part of the “Youth in Action” Programme at the British Council. The young people will be contributing to the costs of travel and any additional costs will be covered from fund raising activities.
