10,000th Dynamic Youth Award

Youth Scotland, the network of youth clubs and groups in Scotland, recently awarded the 10,000th Dynamic Youth Award to a young person from Inverness.

Dynamic Youth Awards is an award scheme for 10 – 14 year olds. The Awards recognise young people’s involvement in a range of activities that they are already doing, including helping out at youth groups, supporting others to learn new skills and community arts projects.

The 10,000th Dynamic Youth Award was awarded to Liam Bell from Smithton-Culloden Youth Centre in Inverness, who achieved his award for designing and painting the cupboards at his youth club, as part of a group project to improve his youth centre.

“The idea for this project came from the young people”, reports Youth Worker Lita Leslie. “They decided they wanted to spruce up the youth centre.  I had recently attended Awards Training, so I suggested they put this work towards a Dynamic Youth Award. The young people worked really well together and encouraged each other to put more and more hours into their Award.  It wasn’t until we did some group reflection at the end that everyone realised how much they had learned from the project.”

Established by Youth Scotland in 2004, the number of young people involved in the Dynamic Youth Award programme has grown substantially. In the first year of the Awards programme, 19 groups supported 379 young people to gain an award. Last year, the number of agencies registered to deliver the awards was 453 and over 3048 young people gained a Dynamic Youth Award.

The Awards support youth groups and schools to meet the requirement of the Scottish Government’s Curriculum for Excellence, which is designed to enable Scotland’s young people to become successful learners, confident individuals, responsible citizens and effective contributors.

Carol Downie, Youth Scotland Chief Executive, said; “We are delighted to be awarding Liam Bell the 10,000th Dynamic Youth Award. The rise in popularity of these Awards demonstrates a commitment from youth groups and schools to recognise the achievements of young people in any setting. At Youth Scotland we are committed to supporting all young people to fulfil their potential. Awards such as the Dynamic Youth Awards offer a supportive framework to enable this. Congratulations to all the 10,000 young people that have gained a Dynamic Youth Award so far.”

Jess Mills, Youth Highland Programme Development Manager said: “Youth Highland, the network of youth clubs and groups in the Highlands, would like to say a big well done to all the young people in the Highlands who have achieved Dynamic Youth Awards. Projects such as this one are a great example of the excellent youth work taking place across the Highlands, and a testament to our dedicated local youth workers, volunteers and young people.”

Highland Councillor, Bill Fernie, Chair of the Education, Culture and Sport committee said: “It is fantastic to see one of our young people gaining recognition in this way.  We are pleased that Dynamic Youth Awards and Youth Achievement Awards are used in Highland to support the personal development of our young people and to recognise their achievements outwith school, as well as within them.  Congratulations to the young people at Smithton-Culloden Youth Centre and to Lita for their hard work.”