Completed petition Stop Forsythia Closing!
Forsythia Youth Centre is at risk of closing due to the uncertainty surrounding Welsh Government’s Communities First funding. Forsythia Youth Centre is a FREE access youth provision which is open: -
4 nights a week for 51 weeks of the year;
Open during the day and the evenings throughout school holidays;
Open on the weekend if completing project work.
Without fail, Forsythia has a minimum of 50 young people aged 11-20 from across Gurnos, Galon Uchaf, Pant, Dowlais and Penydarren, attending every night. Without Forsythia Youth Centre, young people would not have a safe place to access within their community and they would not have anywhere else to go due to a lack of other provision aimed at young people.
Forsythia Youth Centre offers young people the opportunity to take part in youth projects, such as 'Commit to Quit' with Ash Wales, Erasmus+ project on 'Attitudes and Values of Youth Work', and the 'Agenda Project' with Cardiff University. Young people are also provided the opportunity to access organisations such as Drug Aid, Sexual Health projects, Smoking Cessation, Mental Health and Confidence Building, Skills and Qualifications and receive in house support from qualified youth workers.
Young people and the workers are very concerned about the uncertainty surrounding the Communities First funding, as without this funding, Forsythia will have to close down.
We call on the National Assembly for Wales to urge the Welsh Government to ensure that potential changes to the Communities First programme do not cause the closure of Forsythia Youth Centre.
More details
The young people involved with Forsythia Youth Centre have been part of a campaign to improve community safety, which resulted in having a zebra crossing installed outside of the Youth Centre, lighting installed on the hospital pathways and the dangerous subway closed which was always full of drug paraphernalia.
The young people are involved with going into local schools and Merthyr Tydfil College to deliver peer education on Smoking Cessation.
The young people of Forsythia have been involved with the National Assembly for Wales Health and Social Care Committee during the Forth Assembly, where young people took part in a focus group meeting with Assembly Committee Members on the new Psychoactive Substances Inquiry.
The Forsythia Youth Centre has won 18 awards over the past 13 years both locally, nationally and internationally.
Young people at Forsythia have collected 533 signatures using change.org to support this petition.
This petition was considered by the Petitions Committee
Find out about the Petitions Committee’s discussion of this petition