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Jonny Phenix receives award from Youth Link
Jonny Phenix receives Youth Link special award for youth work and ministry
On the 14th March Youth Link marked its 21st birthday with a celebration at its Belfast headquarters attended by leading politicians and representatives of the four main churches. Established as a cross church youth work and training organisation Youth Link has proved to have matured not only in age but also in the extent and quality of its work.
A recent Education and Training Inspectorate report had this to say of the organisation;
"The quality of the training provided by Youth Link is excellent. The organisation is attaining its core aims fully. The educational and pastoral needs of the learners are being very well met. The funders and the churches can have confidence in the organisation's capacity for sustained self-improvement"
We as a diocese have enjoyed considerable training support and resourcing from the organisation over the past three years. Their willingness to train growing numbers of youth ministry leaders as accredited youth workers and to asssit with provide them with resourcing has been a tremendous help. We are indebted to the two training and development officers who have facilitated much of this work. They have been working closely with Jonny Phenix our Diocesan Youth Officer to deliver these programmes in conjunction with Matthew McFadden Clogher Youth.
Paddy White Jim McDowell Jonny Phenix Matthew McFadden and Joe McKeown
The work in Clogher has been so worthwhile that Jonny and Matthew were invited to speak on the work accomplished in their diocese at this recent 21st Clelebration event. Jonny spoke of the great importance of training for youth workers and how his work had been greatly empowered by the significant commitment of the organisation. The fact that churches from across all divides had been able to join to receive this resourcing and training had meant that relationships had been forged for working together in the future. He went on the thank Paddy White, Director for his constant support and Jim McDowell and Joe McKeown, training officers for their work and efforts in the diocese.
As part of this cooperation with youth work in the diocese Youth Link were invited to host a youth leaders conference in Enniskillen last year. This was so successful that they are planning to repeat a similar event in conjunction with the Clogher Diocesan Youth Council in September this year.