Why do a Causeway Project?

For over 10 years now, Causeway has been offering British and Irish youth groups a unique opportunity to develop young people’s sense of identity and self-awareness through exchanges and the partnerships they develop. Causeway projects promote working in a team and provide a valuable avenue to dealing with issues of tolerance and diversity.

There are a lot of great reasons to do a Causeway project.

Many of the issues that youth workers in Ireland and the UK face are very similar: intercultural integration, drug use, anti-social behaviour, teenage pregnancies.

Causeway projects are a great way to explore young people’s perceptions of their own identity and where they come from as well as the issues of tolerance and diversity.

Because the distances are relatively short, there is a real opportunity to build up a strong relationship with a partner group over time.

As a ‘tool’ for youth workers, an exchange can be an innovative way to challenge young people and add to their personal development through experiential learning.

Causeway offers options such as Advance Planning Visits and Contact Exchanges which can help young people prepare for a longer exchange.

Background

The Causeway programme was founded in 1999, as a direct result of the work of young people and those working with them at a youth conference organised by Encounter, Léargas and Connect Youth. Those young people in attendance offered strong testimony to the value and benefit of international contact for the purposes of building mutual understanding, promoting friendship and learning to work together to face the challenges of their lives and experiences. They wanted an opportunity to do more.

The Causeway programme offers a range of opportunities to young people and their intermediaries on the islands of Great Britain and Ireland and brings a new impetus to contact between young people and their workers on both islands.

The programme aims specifically to contribute to the improvements of relationships between young people in these islands by encouraging and supporting exchanges and other forms of encounter between young people and those working on their behalf.

Causeway offers a diverse range of opportunities and activities to young people and their workers, from youth exchanges and preparatory visits to contact making opportunities, training seminars, conferences, job shadowing and many other support activities.

In this website we'll tell you about few case studies and examples of projects.