Youth cuts will ‘decimate Strabane youth groups’

A STRABANE youth worker has warned that potential cuts to the sector for this financial year will have a ‘crushing, negative impact’ on important work taking place across the district.

Brian McNamee, a project co-ordinator at Springhill Park Area Residents and Youth Association (SPARYA), has spoken out after a recently-leaked email from the Department of Education (DE) suggested that there will be no funding available for new youth sector building schemes in the current 2023/24 financial year.

In the previous financial year, the budget was about £34million, but the Education Authority (EA) has been told it may face cuts of 25 per-cent this year. It is not yet known how many centres across the North will be affected.

DE is also responsible for funding youth centres and services.

Mr McNamee said, “Here at SPARYA, we began looking into other funding streams in 2021, as we saw the writing on the wall about what it would mean for the youth sector if local government stopped functioning, which it has done since last May.”

He continued, “Any initiatives that SPARYA have spearheaded since that time have benefitted from National Lottery funding. We have been able to spearhead numerous afterschools’ projects, including the Initiatives Group, toddler groups through SureStart, summer camps and many more, thanks to that funding, giving young people the voice they deserve for a positive impact on their lives. It’s essential that young people don’t have that voice taken away through crippling funding cuts.

“Cuts are never a positive thing in any form, and will only have a negative impact on the youth sector especially in Strabane. We need to be investing in our youth, and their support platforms, instead of cutting funding to extremely important parts of the sector which will be further decimated by the news.”

Even though SPARYA do not benefit from government assistance, Mr McNamee believes that they will still be affected, due to partnerships with other youth organisations faltering as a result of the cuts.

“There are so many youth organisations in and around Strabane, but it’s difficult to create partnerships with them if they’re run by the EA,” he said.

“They can be inconsistent in the way they’re run, and the young people involved with them are being let down badly; this is not an indictment of youth workers in Strabane, all of whom are brilliant.

“It’s about the vital funds needed to help the workers do their jobs to the best of their ability, which aren’t always there, and, thanks to this latest round of cuts, are only to dwindle further.

“Youth work is vitally-important, as it gives young people a positive stepping stone, helping them become prepared for adult life.”