Ballybeen (Northern Ireland)

ABOUT BROOKLANDS YOUTH CENTRE

For more than forty years, the young people of our area have waited for a purpose built centre that would enable them to meet together and enjoy various types of interaction. In March 2010 the doors of Brooklands Youth Centre opened to a chorus of, “At last!”
The centre is owned and managed by the South Eastern Education and Library Board’s Youth Services (SEELB) and is staffed by full-time, part-time and volunteer workers who are here to welcome young people aged 5-25 years to take part in a huge variety of activities.
In the past, youth provision was organised from various rented premises and at one time even from the boot of the youth worker’s car, none of which was the ideal. Now though, Robbie Rea, owner of the afore-mentioned car boot and the full-time worker in the area, is overjoyed with the new centre and is happy to report that there is an increase in the uptake of young people involved with the many projects on offer.
One of the main aims of the SEELB is to provide a safe environment for the youth in their care and Brooklands Youth Centre certainly ticks all the boxes. It is found in the grounds of Brooklands Primary School, in the heart of a highly populated area. Previously, parents under the misconception that the old premises were not in an ideal location for their children, are now happy to send their families along. The current rush of young people to the new premises now extends through a radius of seven miles, which triples our previous catchment.
The organisation has a history of successful and award-winning programmes which include cross-community, citizenship, inter-generational, arts & music, outdoor education and also regular international projects. It is our aim to invite the young people of this area to become involved with any or all of these programmes and that, as they grow older, they would be keen to take up the offer of trainee leader courses. This can lead on to Open College Network qualifications that will, in turn, allow the students to apply for a career in youth work. We look forward to the day when we see our first, home-grown, young graduate through the doors of Brooklands Youth Centre.

ABOUT BALLYBEEN

You might have heard the old adage that ‘no news is good news’. Well it is unfortunate that the media in the U.K. has turned that around to say that ‘good news is not news’ and are not interested in bringing reports about our young people unless it involves drugs, alcohol or anti-social behaviour. If you lived on the eastern coastline of Northern Ireland, you would probably associate press reports of Ballybeen Estate as being synonymous with ‘trouble’.
Situated on the outskirts of Belfast, Ballybeen Estate in Dundonald Village, is one of the biggest housing estates in Northern Ireland with a population of approximately nine thousand residents. It is surrounded by the beautiful scenery of the Castlereagh and Craigantlet Hills and in the distance you can catch a glimpse of the majestic Mourne Mountains. But our immediate vicinity is that of houses, apartments and the culture of painted murals that depict a past that does not necessarily relate to the modern young person living in the area.
Providing social housing for families who came originally from the heartland of Victorian Belfast, Ballybeen has vastly expanded in size since 1964. We have seen a variety of people arriving to take up residence for many different reasons. Some came to improve their quality of housing, some to move closer to the countryside or to be nearer to their place of work but a mass exodus from ‘the troubles’, in the mid 1970’s, dramatically added to the population. Some of those who came during this era expected to return to their homeland in a short space of time but found themselves settling in to the area. Here they found the advantages of spacious, warm homes with gardens and play areas for their children, in what was deemed to still be a rural setting. Many visitors to Ballybeen still remark on how ‘green’ the area is with shrubs, flowers and trees planted by the local authorities in public areas.
From those original settlers, we are now seeing the third generation of young people growing up here and, if truth be told, you would be hard-pressed to hear anything good about them in the press. In an endeavour to redress the balance, let us help to put the record straight about the youth of the Ballybeen/Dundonald area. Take a look at the video about Brooklands Youth Centre and see for yourself the wonderful calibre of young citizens that we have in this area. What they say and, more importantly, WHAT THEY DO... IS GOOD NEWS!

BROOKLANDS YOUTH CENTRE AND COMMUNITY SOUND [E]SCAPES

What a change for us to be able to take part in such a radical, media project!
This is not just any, old music or radio programme but it is cutting edge for us.
We are a small group out of the many kids that come to Brooklands Youth Centre and it was fantastic for us to get involved in something so new. The group consists of guys and girls aged from sixteen to twenty years old who come from different backgrounds and with different interests but from the same area of Dundonald.
As we took time to get to know each other better we also started to take an interest in our surroundings. You know, we didn’t actually stop to listen to our area before taking the mic and sound recording equipment out with us.
Our youth centre is set in the middle of houses that are just beside a dual carriageway, a really busy commuter route leading out of our capital city, Belfast and we recorded the sound of the traffic as it ‘swished’ past, using it as a background to our music tracks.
We wanted to include the ‘drum culture’ of Northern Ireland and recreated it by banging out some rhythms on a dumpster and adding some cymbal sounds from the railings around the centre. By listening carefully, you can hear the solo, flute-sound of a lone blackbird whistling for our recording session.



ICASP is a Major Collaborative Research Initiative, based at the University of Guelph, sponsored by the SSHRC