There are currently 9 'Youth' conferences with
over 100 youth members of the Society throughout Northern
Ireland attached mainly to schools, colleges and universities.
Many other young adults are members of local parish
conferences and are involved in all sorts of activities
from visiting the elderly to running novel fundraising
events.
The Society has always been an organisation where
people with commitment and ideas are always welcome.
Young people as well as older folk, are energetic,
idealistic and imaginative. Many are deeply concerned
about poverty and injustice, and anxious to become
involved both in short-term alleviation and long term
answers.
Michael
Gormley - Regional Youth President
 |
Michael
Gormley is the Northern Region's new Youth
President supported by Sarah Jane Goldring,
Youth Co-ordinator. |
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Michael sees the SVP as an agent of social change
and believes this will be its challenge to a younger
element in the population with a social conscience looking for a means to express it.
However, Michael was concerned that to his friends
the image of SVP was that of an "old and ageing"
body of people unconnected with the young and their
different set of interests - it seemed "frozen
in the past".
As a means of unfreezing this perception, he set
up the first youth conference at his own school, Lumen
Christi College in Derry, where he teaches maths to
boys and girls between the age of 11 and 18.
It now has 15 members carrying out vital visitation
work and contributing to the life of the SVP in the
area.