FUEL

Fermanagh Underage Entertainment Life
 
Is for 13,14,15,16, and 17 yr old young people.
 
(sorry if you are 18 or older or 12 or younger you've either missed ur turn or will have to wait!)
 
Facilitates for young people to meet their needs for safe places and entertainment in Enniskillen.

Fuel is open to just hang out after school or on Saturdays.

HOW IT STARTED

It started with Kat back in May 2008 who made some flyers, that started with the line Kicked out of Erneside??? Nowhere to go??, talked to all the ppl she knew and started the bebo page with this message..

Two yrs later – we only getting the website now! And no mag yet – but hey we got all the rest!!!!

Kat rounded up everyone who she knew to come to the Lakeland Forum for  meetings. Her mum Dianne got some other adults like Niall from NICCY to come and help out. More young people emerged that really wanted to help.  About 50 young people turned up to change the way things were, kicked out of Erneside, the Forum, Asda and other places in town unless they had money to pay for stuff. Young people were left out in the cold and wet with no where to go except under the bridges and fort hill park or in the depot (wit the fights)  and then things could get more difficult .. …

The rest is history, they decided on the name FUEL (Fermanagh Underage Entertainment Life)  after running events at schools we progressed to our first home – a tent (yes we still have the tent) we got the keys to the current building in November 2009 and thanks to Fermanagh District Council and Entertainment Licence soon followed – so the fun began...

FUEL is youth led and have a youth advisory panel made up of two from each school who give input to the running of FUEL and FIND and arrange and run the events on a Friday night.

Now we run events most Friday nights,

We are open Tue, Wed, Thurs, Fri and after school and Sat from 2-6 as a safe place for under 18s to hang out.

The somebody to rant to bit young ppl wanted at the start just grew and grew out of all the young ppl who went through different hard times and told us what they needed.  We struggled to pay the rent the first year and this year so far we have been funded by the Dept of Health who pay the rent and staff wages and helped develop a place to give young ppl up to date info, advice and support as well as providing safe places to hang out – this bit is now known as the FIND centre (www.thefindcentre.com) and is to the side and above the FUEL bit. Altogether it means we can offer a lot to young people now.  

The best and most important part of FUEL is and always has been the young people who helped to get it started and run it. It means that what we do is kept in touch with what’s happening and what is needed. So we can do stuff like go Bundoran and blow ££££’s on amusements just to get ppl out of the town for a day, help in a crisis, stay awakes (agghhh), watch out of opportunities for young people and at the moment apply for funding for a tutor to help out and thinking about exam time and what ppl need to help survive it and other fun stuff….

It was all naturally cross community right from the start – young people from every school in Enniskillen come to and help at the FUEL centre making it the biggest cross community youth project in Fermanagh. There’s not a lot of rules but there is a strong ethos of respect for difference.

We have done a lot and grown a lot – between Sept – Dec last yr we had 3008 young people’s visits to the centre.  But there is still a lot we want to do and could do…..

It can’t be done without all the young people helping and coming to the centre – FUEL and FIND exist because of what young people needed and their work to make it all happen. This is young people working together to make life better and get what they need in their community. FUEL and FIND are the result of adults facilitating for young people to solve their issues.

For those not up to the management committee there's plenty to do, like fundraising, set up a website, maybe help run a magazine... to really get things kicked off.

ENTERTAINMENT

Entertainment is organised and run by the youth panel made up from 2 young people from each school in Enniskillen  and two from the tech. (Adults and security staff assist)
 
sometimes there are vacancies on this panel - see under get involved if you would like to organise stuff
 
Entertainment  is run most Friday nights - and is as varied as the imagination of the ppl organising it.
 
It can be rock gigs, chart party nights, open mic nights, karaoke, quiz nights, movie nights, a spring fling (not sure what this is as it has not happened yet) and themed party nights - see events bit to check out whats on.  
 
You dont have to be a member to come to events only  if you want to go on any trips or a stay awake or stuff like that.
 
FUEL is a cross community project - young people from all schools in Fermanagh, some from Tech and some not in school, use the space. There are very few rules (see the rules bit) just bascially respect others - even  if they are different - so that everyone is can come in, chill out or party.