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Impacting the Lives of Young People since 2004

To achieve its objectives CLAY Youth Project provides a variety of Youth Work programmes both generic (accessible by all young people) or Targeted (aimed at specific cohorts of young people). Below is a snapshot of some recent activities for our UBU and YDP young people.

Christmas In CLAY

Here in CLAY the lead up to Christmas is always very special and is our favourite week of the year! Every year we have CLAY's Santa's Grotto, lots of Christmas activities for the young people, panto trips and the ever popular Christmas dinner for the young people. Santa & Mrs Claus made a special trip to visit our grotto last week. We had a wonderful group of elves who brought energy and fun to our Grotto this year! A big thank you to all young people who helped decorate the centre, make the wooden Christmas trees, who set up for the evening and volunteered for hours to help out. Thank you to all the families who came to visit our lovely Santa! 80 young people attended Christmas Dinner in CLAY over 3 different sessions! The amazing week couldn’t and wouldn’t have happened without the staff team in CLAY, especially head Elf Brian preparing the centre for Santa! Also to our older young people Libby & Sam and former young person, but now volunteer, Kathlyn! We would be lost without you especially this week! So a big thank you from all of us. And finally thank you to our young people for putting so much into it all and making it such fun! Check out our slide gallery below!​

Halloween In CLAY

What a great Halloween we had this year! All CLAY young people were engaged across our UBU, YDP and Early Intervention programmes. The teams kept the young people so busy throughout the mid-term break and Halloween. There were trips to Emerald Park, Bord Gais Theatre for Halloween Panto, Go Karting, Rock Climbing, Barista Training and Halloween Day Family Fun Festive in Eamonn Ceant (Sundrive Park) and Brickfield Park 🎃👻💀.  Activities onsite in CLAY on Halloween included the ever popular Gaming Van, and this year we also had the Glam Van for the first time, Halloween Day Drop Ins, Halloween Night Outreach, Halloween themed wood burning activity, arts & crafts activities, as well as two staff birthdays for Bob & Christine and a very special 21st birthday for one of our young people! CLAY Youth Workers also engaged in Outreach, where they were out and about in the Community meeting young people where they are at. As part of our Halloween programme this year we increased this Outreach Programme and were all around Crumlin, Drimnagh, Brickfield & Eamon Ceannt Parks.

There was also a visit to the local Fire Station and a visit from the Community Gardai to CLAY to chat to some of our youngest members about staying safe at Halloween. Some of the CLAY team also, along with the Solas Project, D12 community representatives and An Garda Síochána were in attendance at the D12 Public Community Safety Forum prior to Halloween - all working together towards a safer Halloween for all young people in the community. Thank you to everyone who helped make our Halloween programme such a success and to our young people for putting so much into it all and making it such fun! Check out our slide gallery below!
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CLAY Family Fun Day 2024

CLAY recently held a Family Fun Day for all the young people and families of CLAY as well as the local Community. It was a fantastic day and we were so lucky with the lovely sunny weather! A huge thank you to the CLAY team, all the amazing volunteers, our funders CDYS, IYJS YDP, Dublin City Council and to our Board of Directors as well as all the companies who contributed to the day. The fantastic McDonalds team who worked tirelessly, the amazing face painters, balloon modellers, magician and every single person who helped to make it such an amazing day for the young people and their families.

St. Patrick's Day Parade 2024

Some of CLAY's UBU young people took part in this year's St. Patrick's Day Parade as part of the City of Dublin Youth Services team participation. Their commitment prior to the Day of showing up weekly to learn a musical instrument and then representing their families and their youth project at the Parade on St. Patrick’s Day was one of the main highlights of the year. A first from some even to attend a St. Patrick's Day and the bonus for them was making onto TV, beamed to millions around the world!

Gaisce Awards 2024

Some of CLAY's YDP young people took part in this year's Gaisce Awards. Gaisce - The President’s Award is Ireland’s national youth award and is a self-development programme for young people aged 14-25. It is a direct challenge from the President of Ireland, Michael D. Higgins, to all young people to dream big and fulfil their potential. One CLAY YDP young person recently completed his Gold Gaisce Journey in August when he spent 6 days in Achill Island and participated in a 104km cycle from Westport to Achill and back, followed by a 56km hike over an additional 2 days.  He is one of three young people who completed this challenge and these young people are the first 3 people engaging in a YDP programme around Ireland to achieve this. CLAY's young person is also the youngest young person to complete the challenge. What an achievement - well done!! 

Early Intervention Summer Programme Highlights 

The YDP Early Intervention Summer programme 2024 provided a lot of young people with first time experiences which was amazing to see, this included: horse riding, Footie Golf, indoor rock climbing, paddle boarding on the canal, trips to Flynn Park, the Aquatic Centre, Zip Lining, Fort Lucan, Clara Lara and even a trip to the DSPCA! The EI Programme also worked in collaboration with CDETB’s Music Generation Programme to deliver a music programme to one group to foster emotional understanding and social connection. Through activities like group songwriting, rhythm games, and improvisation, the young people were encouraged to listen to one another, express emotions, and develop awareness of their peers' feelings.

UBU Youth Voices

Earlier in the year CLAY's UBU young people participated in City of Dublin Youth Voices in Croke Park with funders and government departments. The young people spoke about how youth work has impacted them positively. Young people also met with some TD’S regarding the funding for youth projects and what they would like seen done to improve the services for them as young people.

Barista Training

Young people from both CLAY's UBU and YDP Programmes, as well as the Solas Programme completed Barista training over the summer. The training was held in CLAY's new cabin in conjunction with the South Dublin City Partnership. This training proved both popular with, and very successful for, the young people especially between the ages of 16 to 18 with one young person taking up employment in a café since the training.

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