Getting to Know the Community Better

Today seemed like there wasn't much to talk about which maybe there isn’t but there was a couple really interesting things that took place. In the morning I worked on detailing the ways of knowing I had completed my goals and wrote up a questionnaire to complete with the different programs to learn more about them. After I had completed that Eileen wanted to take me out in the community again for a bit. She let me know she had set up a tour of another youth service in the area.
We left to go check out the other youth service and on the way she drove me past a couple of the Travellers areas. One area was basically what we in Canada would think of as a trailer park, with mobile homes, some looking more permanent than others. The next area she took me to was kind of an enclosed area which looks kinda like a gated community that I was told was a group of Travellers as well. I am just starting to learn more and put together the bits and pieces of what Travellers are and learning more about their culture and some of the challenges they are facing from Irish society.
Once we got to the centre we were given a tour by a girl who works in the office. She was very nice and seemed to know a lot about the centre itself. Youth workers in the centre were having a meeting in the main drop-in to discuss programming for the year so I was not able to get a really good look at the drop-in centre part of the building or talk with any of the workers who would have worked directly with the youth. This youth centre was much more of what I had expected my placement was going to be like in regards to how they operated and what services they provided to the community. Their focus was much more on just providing youth with a safe place to hangout and giving them safe alternatives to street activities. You could tell the funding for their building had been much more and it make sense as it was explained to me that the building had been built in the boom to help with some of Finglas's social problems. The building is actually one of the places we stopped at on my trip with the school when we got lost finding the centre and went to like three other places called Finglas Youth Services before finding The Den. The building itself has a big gym with pull out bleachers and a stage. It has an art room designed to be an art room, it has a music room that was designed to be a music room, it has some extra project work space, a back garden outside type area for spray painting, and a chill out room upstairs with carpet and tons of couches. The overall place is really cool but it was interesting when I started to ask about funding and numbers accessing the services. The numbers accessing are huge. On any drop-in night during the week there could be up to 100 to 200 kids. The programs were designed and planned for the youth, not planned with and designed with the youth. A few interesting differences. A huge reason is funding and agendas. Also, although they may basically have the same name, the services they are trying to provide the community are very different.
To end the day we had a meeting from 2 pm to 5 pm. I really wasn't sure what it was until I got up to the room and it started to make sense to me. I felt like we had all been kinda given a lack of information on what it was, we knew it had something to do with drugs but were not to clear if it was training, resources, or discussion What it ended up being was a research team funded by the Finglas drug enforcement team doing a project on finding out about what drugs were being used and the amount they were being used in the community. Although I am new to the community and learning about this myself, they wanted me to take part, which was very cool because I got a lot of information regarding drug use that staff from the centre are seeing with their young people. Some of the drugs they brought up as being big issues on south Finglas streets were yellies and blueies (which are different pills like ecstasy, legal in Ireland (here is an article about it:http://www.herald.ie/news/now-danger-drug-snow-blow-is-sweeping-the-city-as-banned-head-shop-pills-go-underground-2389318.html ), cocaine, ketamine, steroids, and even starting to see a bit of meth being used in some parts. There was a lot of interesting conversation and it really gave me a chance to have a bigger group discussion with all the workers about what they saw going on in the community and where substances were being used.