Eastmoors on Sanquhar Street has been a youth club for years and has been really popular in previous times. There’s a hard working team of people who would like to bring it back to former glory; they want to work with young people in Splott and surrounding areas of Adamsdown, Tremorfa and Roath who want to take part in activities and have somewhere to meet and experience new things.
Eastmoors has three main provisions that they deliver for young people:
- General activities at Eastmoores Youth Activity Centre
- Upcycling with Global Love Trust and Aaron
- Youth Exchanges through Global Love Trust
General:
General activities this term include cooking sessions, upcycling, recording studio and theatre production.
This year, the youth club is having a craft fair and beauty and the beast pantomime at Eastmoors on the 6th of December from 5 onwards. Flyers should be out soon.
The club is hoping to have refreshments and a Christmas fayre downstairs with the garden like a German Market (think heat lamps and blankets!). There will be an upcycling craft fair where young people can sell the things that they have upcycled and raise money for youth exchanges.
Eastmoors has a yard out the back and they are aiming to make it look pretty again with upcycled junk!
Eastmoors is currently open three times a week at these times: 6.15pm to 8.45pm
Tuesdays is juniors’ night for young people between the ages of 11 and 13.
Thursdays and Fridays caters for young people aged 14 to 25.
Upcycling:
Who knew that there are menders and fixers alive and well in Splott, finding fly-tipped items and turning them into useful items of furniture? Well there are and they are young people!! The upcycling team at Eastmoors recently picked up a dumped bed and have almost finished turning it into a sofa!
The upcycling initiative is the brainchild of Splott resident Aaron Harrison, who runs local charity Global Love Trust (he told me that he loves it but has been poor for six years!). Aaron is a youth worker at Eastmoor in the evenings and a youth mentor in the day with the Council.
The charity keeps Aaron busy. He grew up in the time of parents waving their children off with ‘it’s Saturday morning – out you go and I’ll see you Saturday night’ and found an outlet in typical boys pastimes of building stuff.
Aaron is now working with a group in Belgium to create a community upcycled space and offer the young people involved with upcycling in Splott the chance to go abroad and share their skills and experiences with other young people, while also experiencing new things themselves.
The team at Eastmoors have the tools and equipment and experience; they just need the young people to come along. Upcycling sessions are held on Thursday and Friday evenings for 14-25 year-olds.
They are also looking for storage space and volunteers. If someone would let them put a shipping container on their land, they would be very grateful. They have budget for one but nowhere to put it!
Youth Exchange:
Through Glocal Love Trust, Aaron has organised youth exchanged for young people to visit countries in Europe and beyond. Participants have gone on to good jobs and experienced a lot. The youth exchanges offer young people opportunities that they generally couldn’t afford. Hols and exchanges are expensive but they tend not to charge more than £70 for any trip in Europe.
Global Love Trust was set up 2010 with the objective of helping young people travel and learn through experiences.
On average between 10 ans 15 young people go on exchanges. Over the years, around 700-800 young people have benefitted.
There are usually three to four exchanges a year. Young people don’t necessarily have to pay for a trip – some of the exchanges are fully funded up to a certain cost. Time Credits can also be used to pay for trips. Seven Time Credits are needed to pay for a day of the exchange.
They are currently in between exchanges. Next trips could be Belgium or possibly Ghana (which will have work experience element to it, working with farmers and construction company and the young people will stay in an orphanage). There will be an element of cost associated with this one that the young people would have to raise money to cover, but Aaron is on hand to help with this. For the last big trip, young people sold upcycled items to raise the funds.
Some of the most memorable exchanges for Aaron include the summer of 2014 when he ran three youth exchanges over six weeks in St David’s in West Wales, and all with his leg in plaster! That was really back to basics with 60 young people all camping in a field!
Aaron told Inksplott:
“It was a great time! At one point there was so many people, trying to do games and my voice wasn’t so good, so I started mumbling and doing hand signals and they all followed it! It worked!”
Another memorable exchange was in Ghana this February (2016) and they had an event in a local hotel to raise money and awareness for the orphanage and managed to raise 1,000 cedi which is around £250 all in one day and were on the radio.
“We gave out free condoms to 400 people and showed them how to make keyhole gardens and how to make solar ovens, which went to the orphanage. The money raised covered rent for nearly a year for the new building!”
As you can see, there’s much on offer for young people at Eastmoors Youth Centre.
To get involved or find out more, visit them here:
Twitter: @Global_Love
Facebook: Global Love Trust
Website: www.globallovetrust.org.uk
Or go see Aaron at Eastmoors!
If there are any craftsmen or craftladies out there that want to get involved and help, Eastmoors is not going to say no! Volunteers can also earn Time Credits, which can be redeemed in many places across Cardiff like the National Pool in the bay and Premiere Cinema in town.
So spread the word please – there’s an amazing youth club in Splott and an equally amazing charity offering young people the experience of a lifetime. If you’re (lucky enough to be) 25 or under, get yourself to Eastmoors Youth Club and have a chat to the wonderful staff about what you would like to do.