Getting back into the swing of things 2021

Traditionally at Solas Project the team get together every August before stepping out of Summer into a new school year. This is a chance to revisit our vision and values together, to remind ourselves and each other the purpose of our work, and why we do what we do. Thanks to the St. Catherine’s Church for giving us use of their space allowing us to all be together face to face safely with social distance!

This year we took some time to reflect on a crazy year and half of Covid19 and the implications the pandemic had on our work with young people. We were able to pull some useful learning from the changes that we made in order to keep everyone safe, such as increased working from home where possible and spreading staff out over our different locations.

August 2021 team week was also an unusual one and shortened as we were grieving the sudden death of a young person very dear to us. At this extremely hard time, the team were also kept busy facilitating a space in for young people to gather and share stories about this young man the whole community knew and loved.

The week culminated with a team day out kayaking at Avon Ri in Blessington served as therapeutic for some of us. Surrounded by mountains and the lake, we paired up to do a little tour of the lake on our kayaks including a refreshing dip in the lake, very much welcomed by us all on a sunny balmy day. We would highly recommend Avon Ri with its stunning scenery, excellent staff and great food options. It was a lovely way to unwind and spend some time outside of our normal inner city setting.

This face to face time as a team and particularly our trip out was a unique opportunity to get to know each other outside of the work context particularly after a year and half where social activities were not an option. It was also the first time some of our newer staff had met the team in person.

As is always the case, this was a small pause between summer programmes ending and yearly programmes firing on ahead. A few days later we welcomed our new European Solidarity Corps (ESC) volunteers for 2021-2022…more to come on that…we’ll introduce them soon!

We are currently recruiting some new members of the team for a new programme and look forward to welcoming them to the Solas Project family.  For the upcoming year we’re hoping we can have more time together as team like this, through the hard times and celebrations alike.