Learning for Life and Work (LLW)

The Love for Life team paid their annual visit to the Abbey today and delivered their RSE programme to Years 8 and 10. Both groups thoroughly enjoyed their respective workshops and gained a lot from today’s visit.

Year 8 workshop: i:zone is our exciting programme for pupils who are in the early stages of their post-primary education. We encourage pupils to investigate the structure and function of the human body and its amazing capabilities before looking at some of the pressures of growing up. Pupils will identify and examine various influences on their lives and think carefully about how these can bring them closer to their identified goals and targets.

During this action packed presentation pupils think about the many changes that young people experience and identify strategies for
managing those transitions. The presentation concludes with an interactive activity that equips your pupils with the skills to be
assertive and to say no to negative pressure.

Year 10 workshop: At Love for Life we recognise that young
people today face tremendous pressure from many places and often find themselves confused about who they should be listening
to. Icebergs & Babies is our presentation aimed at 14/15 year old pupils and begins by looking at the types and sources of pressure that young people face on a daily basis.

A recent survey stated that young people are exposed to approximately 90 000 images of sex from the media between the ages of 8 and 18 so we take some time to look at how the media uses sex to sell us products and keep our attention as viewers. The emotional aspect of relationships, pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections are key aspects of this programme.

Abbey Students stand for Youth Parliament

Three Abbey students, Ferdia O’Malley, Christopher Dunne and Declan McGuinness recently stood as candidates for both the Newry & Armagh and South Down constituencies in this year’s Youth Parliament elections. These elections for 11-18 year olds, held during March and April, have been taking place in Northern Ireland since 2012. In total, 12,831 young people from across the province cast their vote.

Whilst none of our candidates were eventually elected, all three developed excellent manifestos based on the issues they felt were of most importance to young people. Christopher Dunne also produced two YouTube videos in support of his campaign.

The eighteen Northern Ireland members of the Youth Parliament will now have the opportunity to champion the voices of young people. They will engage with them in their constituencies and encourage them to take part in the Youth Parliament’s UK-wide consultation ‘Make Your Mark’, in which 41,488 young people from Northern Ireland participated last summer.

The 2016 campaign, #DontHateEducate, is intended to address issues of race and religious discrimination. Previous campaigns have dealt with issues such as mental health, votes at sixteen, education and transport.

This year’s Youth Parliament members have also been active in other ways, including meeting local MLAs, hosting a reception at Stormont and lobbying MPs.

Ife Grillo, Vice Chair, Campaigns & Communications at the British Youth Council said, “It’s fantastic to see even more young people taking part in Northern Ireland’s Youth Parliament elections. Each member of the Youth Parliament can now champion the views of young people with a strong mandate behind them. Congratulations to all the candidates, schools and youth groups who took part in this year’s elections.”