It was all sunshine and smiles on the beautiful south campus of Maynooth NUI for the 2022 NUI Certificate in Global Youth Work and Development Education graduation ceremony, on the 25th of March 2023. Graduates were present along with their loved ones, giving the celebration a lovely sense of occasion. Áine Doody, Head of Global Citizenship Education, Irish Aid, Department of Foreign Affairs was there too, representing the funders commitment to the programme.

Scouting Ireland group members Colm Kavanagh, Philomena Ilobekeme Obasi, Aine Ferris and April Tambling, pictured with Aine Doody, Irish Aid. Pic: Saiful Haque.
Young people and issues of justice and inequality at the core
The 2022 programme launched in January, with participants coming from a wide range of youth work backgrounds. There was a shared interest among all participants in being able to understand and contextualise local issues of poverty, injustice, and discrimination as broader global themes. A huge strength of the programme was the youth practice shared amongst participants, keeping young people and issues of justice and inequality at the centre of the programme.

Diverse perspectives from across Ireland
The class was delivered as a hybrid model, meeting online on Tuesday mornings and convening at the Maynooth Campus for three residential weekends. The hybrid model suited the participants, overcoming geographic barriers with youth workers coming from the four corners of Ireland. It allowed participants to create synergies with other youth workers they might not usually work with, and to hear perspectives that they normally might not hear.

Collaboration and commitment
Arriving at the graduation day, with the support of loved ones, felt like a moment of community, collaboration, and celebration. Importantly too, the commitment of the youth workers to the programme, shows an understanding of global youth work as an approach that helps youth organisations to respond better to the needs of the young people they work with, all of whom are faced by the challenges and opportunities of living in a globalised and unequal world.
Watch this space for details of the next intake for the NUI Certificate in Global Youth Work and Development Education. Applications will open in July 2023 for the course starting in January 2024.
The programme is a collaboration between Youth 2030, NYCI and the Department of Applied Social Studies, Maynooth University.
Youth 2030 is a strategic partnership between NYCI and Irish Aid, working in consortia with Concern Worldwide, Maynooth University, and Trócaire to deliver Global Youth Work to the youth sector.