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Youth
Cafe
The cafe opened at the end of January 2000 for 14-17 year olds. It has now been running for
5 years. On the opening night the cafe volunteers received a ‘petition’ with the names of over 30 13 year olds requesting that they may also use the cafe which is held in Broomlands Gate community hall which we lease from North Ayrshire Council. We agreed to them using the drop in and so in the first year of operation 144 young people aged 13-17 have used the cafe (90 boys, 54 girls).
They play pool, table football, computer games, watch TV and videos, board games and listen to music. There have been special nights for pool competitions, table football competitions, karaoke and discos.
At first we charged an admission fee of 50p but we dropped that after the first 6 months and have seen an increase in the regular
attendees since then.
The drop-in centre was set up to help the young people in the community but we also wanted the community at large to benefit. The cafe provides the young people the opportunity to come off the streets where there is the potential for trouble. This is of benefit to the community. We have had no real problems in and around the cafe since we opened. In fact, the premises we use was a frequent target for vandals but the incidences of vandalism have greatly reduced. We have little or no problem in this area.
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