Lunch Meeting - Canon John Ellis, Shalom Youth Centre

Today's speaker was  Canon Reverend John Ellis from the Shalom Youth Project on the East Marsh.

John began his talk be informing us that the youth centre was the only one in North East Lincs. Why?

As a result of a report about anti social behaviour,  it was decided that youth centres would provide a safe haven for youth, whilst a later report suggested that youth work should be transformed into training/instruction rather than leisure/socialising time. So youngsters were in school all day and in the evening they received yet more training! As a result of this youth centres declined.  Fortunately, being  an independent unit the Shalom centre  could ignore such dictums.  Latterly centres have suffered from the financial restraints and this has led to the closing of many centres in the town.

The project costs £27k per year to run, and they have between 120 to150 youngsters attending, many of whom are not at school.

John explained that young people need a safe haven because the streets are no longer safe, and there are problems with drugs.  The youth project is important  and provides a safe place for socialising and leisure  time and it also allows contact with youth workers. A positive impact can be seen upon them, and many return in later life to say thank you.

Our best wishes to this worthwhile project and a £500 donation was given.

Also we had two visitors from the Market Rasen Club, President Stuart David and Rotarian Hugh Nott. They thanked us for our donations to their good cause and they had raised  £2000 for a family in need.