Diocesan News
Cork Diocesan Youth Council benefits from Growing Lives grant
Back in July, the Cork Diocesan Youth Council (CDYC) had the opportunity to apply for the Allchurches Trust Growing Lives grant. Allchurches Trust is one of the UK’s largest grant–making charities and gave more than £16 million to churches, charities and communities in 2018. Its funds come from its ownership of Ecclesiastical Insurance Group.
Recently, CDYC were informed that their application had been accepted.
When CDYC first decided to apply for the grant, there were a lot of discussions had about what the grant would be most suitably used for.
Since March of this year, when everything went into lockdown, our Diocesan Youth Officer and a group of young leaders took to social media and on–line events to keep our young people across the diocese connected.
They held regular Youth Zoom meetings, with a different activity every session. What started out as a once a month meeting, ended up being a weekly on–line event as it was recognised very quickly by the Youth Officer, young leaders, the youth and their parents that there was a need for the on–line connectivity to continue more frequently. They held table quizzes, scavenger hunts, guess who games, music games, miming games etc. And even put a fun video together as a project, which the Bishop of Cork, Cloyne & Ross promoted and sent it out across the diocese through social media for the teens!
But throughout all of this time and because CDYC weren’t prepared for such a pandemic, like many more people weren’t, the equipment that our Diocesan Officer and young leaders were using wasn’t significant enough for the scale of the work that was being done.
So it was finally decided that in order for CDYC to continue carrying out their work in the areas of youth work, promoting mission, leadership development, community involvement and looking after the young people’s mental health plus many more factors, that CDYC would up grade and purchase new equipment in order to develop their on–line projects.
This would enable them to grow their audience to engage with the church through on–line activity, to see young people engage in worship, prayer and Bible study on–line, and to courage the young people to remain active in the church throughout this current situation. The equipment will also help to develop leadership skills among the young teenage leaders. And finally, to be able to communicate with young people on a regular basis to develop opportunities to help young people to get through these difficult times.
The Diocesan Youth Officer for Cork, Cloyne and Ross, Hilda Connolly, said: “CDYC are very grateful to Allchurches Trust for their generosity and support and that they will certainly put the grant to good use!”
To keep up to date with CDYC, follow them on their Facebook account or on Instagram, and Hilda can be contacted at dyo@corkchurchofireland.com
Diocesan Media & Information Technology Officer
087 7055 989
Ms Denise Stobart
media@corkchurchofireland.com