Parish Development
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CURRENTLY FUNDED PROJECTS
There are currently over 80 projects supported by the Fund covering a wide range of interests and activities. Read about our featured project of the month below.
A list of all the currently funded projects is available below. 
Featured project of the month
The Shack Youth Project
The Shack was set up to create a safe and non-threatening space for young people where they can hang out with friends, enjoy diversionary activities, and develop various life skills. The project is driven by young people and seeks to empower them through various activities and projects. It is also enables the church to interact with young people and to give them opportunities to explore their faith.
| The project is based in Annan, and is supported by Annandale and Eskdale presbytery through its youth worker, and St Andrews and Annan Old parish churches. |
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The Shack is run as a drop in, where young people can come and go as they please.
It is open on Mondays and Wednesdays at lunchtimes, and after school until 9.00pm on Monday and 5.00pm on Wednesdays. Since opening, it has been interacting with about 40-50 different young people each week.
What we do
There are different activities on offer, such as internet access, music, video games, a pool table, and an outside area for football and touch rugby.
The pavilion building where the Shack is run was an eye sore to the community, however the young people have painted and refurbished it, and it has been transformed into a place of which young people feel proud.
Over the past few months, there have been some great spiritual discussions over the pool table, including issues such as the existence of God, the relevance of church and the importance of faith. These have been stimulating and challenging.
Many of the young people that come to the Shack are what we call 'hard to reach' young people who have had previous trouble with the police or other problems. What has been encouraging is that many of them find the Shack to be a place where they can be themselves, and their behaviour has been brilliant. They have been very respectful, and often help with cleaning the place up.
We work closely with community wardens and the local police to ensure young people are safe and the local area is respected. The Shack is also closely linked to the school, and the facilities are used for mentoring and helping to build confidence in young people. Most of the local residents are pleased about the Shack and what we do, and we have an open door policy so that local people can raise any concerns if necessary. Generally though, the young people who come know this is a place where they can have fun without getting into bother and are really well behaved.
We noticed that very few young girls were engaging with the Shack, so we changed an office into a girls' room and approached various girls between 13 - 17 to help develop this into a space where girls could hang out. This has worked well and we have a lot more girls coming along now.
The future
The main aim of the Shack is to be a gateway for young people to engage with God's love and encounter Christian volunteers. It is now the only place in Annan that is solely for young people and the church is seen at the forefront in providing this, something which is viewed by many in the community as very positive.
Over the next years, we hope to employ a part time youth worker, and fund a gap year programme which would enable the Shack to be more accessible on weekends and during the week. We also want to develop a team of volunteers from the local churches to create better links with the church and we are keen to develop activities for Polish young people, as there no facilities for this group at the moment.
We are grateful to the Parish Development Fund for helping to get the Shack Youth project underway.
Read about some of the other projects which have been featured on our archive page here.
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Project list
The current projects supported by the Fund can be downloaded below, listed by Presbytery.
This includes details about each project and a link to its website where this is available.
* To view PDF documents we recommend using Adobe Reader software, which is available to download for free from the Adobe website.
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