Emily Sethi, Youth Work Coordinator and Wellbeing Practitioner for Young Devon, writes for the Herald.
We have been delivering ‘Youthie’, Sidmouth Youth Centre online sessions, for nearly a year now. Whilst still missing visiting the centre in person, our young people have enjoyed the opportunity to meet with friends and youth workers over Zoom, when needing to stay at home during lockdown.
The Sidmouth Youth Centre team and I are committed to making these online sessions a fun and engaging safe space, as well as offering an opportunity for young people to stay con-nected, supported and encouraged.
I asked one of our lead Youth Workers, Chris Moore, about his thoughts on running our sessions online and he had this to say:
“Whilst in lockdown, it's great that we are able to use a software like Zoom to run our virtual youth sessions, to work with the young people we would normally work with in the Sid-mouth Youth Centre.
"From talking to everyone about wellbeing and how everyone is coping with lockdown, to enjoying ourselves while playing games; the Zoom sessions are really a lot of fun!
"These virtual sessions give our young people the opportunity to safely interact with each other in a fun way, whilst also sticking to the current lockdown rules…”
We also asked the young people that have attended our virtual sessions why they keep coming along each week:
"We enjoy the Sidmouth Youth Centre Zoom sessions because it's fun! We get to socialise and play games during lockdown…”
"I like the Sidmouth Youth Centre Zoom sessions because I get to see my friends…”
"We play lots of fun games, like scrabble and scattergories…”
We want to invite and encourage more local young people to attend our online ‘Youthie’ ac-tivities, and join our Sidmouth Youth Centre community! We currently run a Juniors session for Years 6-7 on a Friday, and a Seniors session for Years 8+ on a Wednesday.
If you, or a young person you know, would like to join us, please message our Sidmouth Youth Centre team on Facebook @sidmouthyouthcentre or on Instagram @sidyouthyd.
Our Young Devon social media accounts are also great places to find out what our charity is up to, and for helpful information and links. Check them out
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