TRAFFORD YOUTH FOR CHRIST - October 2021

 

It has been a while and a few things have changed so let us reintroduce ourselves: We at Trafford Youth For Christ seek to take the good news of the gospel relevantly to every young person in the Trafford area. We seek to do this by delivering RE lessons from a Christian viewpoint in the local schools and delivering youth work programmes in the local community.

Like everyone else, things have looked very different for us throughout the pandemic. Schools were closed, youth groups were closed, and our staff team were furloughed for most of it. Overnight, everything went online so we followed suit. We began our weekly Thursday Thoughts videos and daily posts on our social media platforms. This was a great way to keep engaged with our supporters. If you haven’t already, have a look at our Facebook and Instagram pages by searching “@tycteam”. We spent this time doing training (Joanne completed a Chaplaincy course with CYM), planning for the future and updating and expanding our lessons for the return to schools work

Now that things are beginning to get back to normal, we are excited to relaunch our youth group on the Sale West estate called the Cave. We will be focusing on detach work to begin with in order to advertise and personally invite the young people to the youth group. Our goal is to get the young people off the streets and to welcome them into a safe space where they can relax and explore the good news of the gospel. We have continued to have a presence on the estate throughout the last year and a half by litter picking in the area. We have had a great response from the community with lots of people stopping to comment and thank us for the work. It’s the “litter” things that make a difference… see what I did there?

Throughout lockdown, Dave and Joanne partnered with some local Churches to help deliver their youth programmes. Joanne has enjoyed working alongside Altrincham Baptist Church while Dave has been engaging with Fuel at St Mary's on a Friday night. This is something that we wish to continue throughout the next months and try to partner with more Churches in the future.

We have recently welcomed a new member of staff. Alex has joined us from Warrington Youth For Christ and is our Church Youth & Community worker. He will be focusing on running the Cave and working in partnership with St Albans and St Mary’s Church.

Thank you for your support thus far,

Dave, Joanne and Alex