Local woman highlights impact of volunteerism

FORÓIGE volunteers from all over Ireland came together in the Hodson Bay Hotel in Roscommon last month for Foróige’s annual volunteer conference.

At the event, a member of Raheny Foróige Club reflected on the impact that a volunteer can have on the outlook and life of a young person. 

Rachel Carbery spoke about the club’s activities and how it has gone from strength to strength over the last few years. 

Knowing when to give young people space, being non-judgemental, never making assumptions and always being willing to learn from young people were some of Rachel’s top tips for other volunteers.

Pauline Compton, Alison Burns, Aisling O’Connell, also from North Dublin, joined Rachel at the conference. 

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.

‘Foróige Volunteers – preparing young people for a changing world’ was the theme of this year’s conference which 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 we 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.”