Hackney Young Women conquer NI

posted by: Administrator

This autumn, a group of young women from HYWG went to Northern Ireland as part of their Duke of Edinburgh's Award. Here's a diary of their expedition...

"Both our young women’s workers Ciara and Kellie took on the roles of picking us up from our homes. We were all picked up in the early morning between 4-5am on the 24th September 2010 to get to Stansted Airport on a 7:15am flight; boarding the Easy Jet Airline. Unfortunately we missed our flight due to the airline changing our departure gate at the last moment. We then managed to negotiate with the airline to book us on another flight, which they did, and apologised for any inconvenience caused. During the long wait, many people moaned and complained in annoyance.

Fortunately we went through to the duty free area where we window shopped and put on make-up… well some of us. 

We landed in Belfast roughly an hour later. We then met a man named Dessy who was our personal driver. We drove for 2-3 hours to Strabane where we went to Asda for our food, then travelled another hour to where we were staying; in a refurbished primary school.

Our task was to was walk approximately 5 hours; to the camp site and back. We walked 12 km to the camp site and 15 km back to our home. On the way, we had to take pictures of certain bridges as part of our task.

There were six of us in a group so we took on different roles such as, a first aider, being navigators and cooks for the camp site.

As part of being a navigator, you had to plot a route and follow the map using knowledge of  what the symbols represent; and also a compass. Within the journey also, we alternated  the tents every 30-60 minutes as they were  heavy to carry. Adding on to the strain, we carried rucksacks which held our belongings i.e. sleeping bag, food etc.

We finally arrived at the campsite, rejoicing. The first thing we did was set up our tents. Halfway through this, the cooks began to make our dinner (pot noodle). The weather was cold, so after eating dinner everybody went to their tent.

We then woke up early in the morning and packed our tents along with everything else; and began another long walk to our home in Strabane.

On the last day of our vacation in Northern Ireland, we went to the city, Belfast. There we met with a youth group were we socialised and exchanged information about living conditions. We tackled issues such as, drugs, violence and ‘groups’ e.g. (emos’ and chavs’)

This experience has given us support; especially with team work. We relied on each other and had each others back.

But on a serious note, we experienced walking in another country, guiding our way through the roads and woods only referring to a map and a compass.

Furthermore, sleeping in the middle of nowhere (the campsite) with no adults! Neither did we have light surrounding us; we relied on our torches."

These are the things we learned:

• Irinie- “listen to each other”
• Georgina- “learn to use a compass”
• Petra- “take rests when needed”
• Aminat- “don’t argue over the dishes”

Find out more about the DoE through the accreditations pages.