Encouraging young people’s creativity at Gateway Project

By David Flynn

Shelly Dunican, Youth Officer with Foróige, has been active on the ground with the young Athlone members of the project, and, along with her team in Foroige and Kieran Burke at ACT, they encourage the creativity of the young members, some of which was on display on Youth Night.

Shelly works with up to 80 young people each week, aged from roughly 10 to 17 years.

The youngsters call into St Mary’s Hall after finishing up in the evenings at the secondary schools across the area, and the centre stays open from 11am to 8pm, five days a week, with occasional weekend activities.

On Youth Night, the young members showed their creativity and projects to the public. They entertained the gathering with dancing, poetry, some history reading, alongside some background music.

The atmosphere created by the young people’s projects greatly promoted Gateway and did their groups proud on the night.

“They all love doing art here, and we’ve a mural upstairs in the meeting room,” said Shelly, on Youth night.

The Athlone Foroige group recently travelled to 'Comic Con' in Galway and attended Reel Life Science, where they won first prize in the youth organisation category for their TikTok work, entitled 'Why is the Sky Blue?'

“At the Gateway Youth Project, Foroige works closely with Kieran in ACT, and we benefit from each other,” said Shelly.

She said Foroige was planning to make its youth booth multi-functional and have a recording studio so that members can create podcasts.

They are also planning to continue their successful movie, ‘Fazed Out’ by turning it into a trilogy, over the next two Easters.

“That’s what we’ll be doing and the guys want to put their artwork everywhere. As you walk up the stairs, you’ll see a tree branch there with signatures,” said Shelly.

“They are going to make their mark, and that’s what matters!”