Volunteers

Through the X-HALE Youth Awards, the Irish Cancer Society encourages youth groups and youth organisations to play their part in helping to prevent young people in their communities from starting to smoke. X-HALE provides resources to youth groups to deliver message to the young people about the issues around smoking which are important in their community. Seven Foróige videos won in their categories! You can check out each of the videos by clicking on the links provided. 

My first awareness of Foróige happened many years ago when I joined my local Foróige club. I associated the time spent in the club with fun, laughing with our club leaders and other members, playing games and working on little projects.

Years later, having experienced what it’s like to be a young person in Foróige, I wanted to give something back to other young people and so I became a volunteer in one of Sligo’s Foróige Projects, The Crib Youth Project and Health Café. This opened my eyes to the extent of the work Foróige does on a national level and helped me understand the level of opportunity the organisation provides to so many young people outside of my local area in Sligo. This assured me that being involved with young people and their development was something that I wanted to do and I went on to choose youth work as a career choice.

"98 years ago, people were prepared to die for Ireland. Now we need people who are prepared to live for Ireland!" - John Sullivan who has been a Foróige volunteer for 50 years.

When I started in Foróige there were two clubs in the county, no District Councils and only 3 people employed in Head Office. Our club did activities like public speaking, sports days, intercounty events and all sorts of things. We had no mobile phones and we went everywhere on bikes. We made bedside lockers, pool tables, Christmas cards featuring the three churches in the Parish (which the priest then decided on as the logo for the parish)!