The Possibility of a Moray Youth Local Action Group

By Ollie Myrvang-McAvoy

On the 4th May this year I took part in an event hosted by the Cairngorms Youth Local Action Group (CYLAG for short).

At this event there were also two groups of representatives from the Finnish YLAG’s. Each YLAG did a presentation, as well as shorter presentations from four youth projects which the Cairngorms YLAG had funded.

The three young people had all received funding of up to £500 each for equipment and qualifications / courses for developing their individual skills of bike repair, forest bathing and canyoning.

The individual who received funding for bike repair drastically improved his mental health post lockdown, due to being able to afford to get qualified and to further pursue a personal passion. It also means that having a bike and choosing to ride it instead of car or even public transport (which is more environmentally friendly) is easier now that one more person is able to do bike repair. This project was good for youth health, transport and life experience.

How Young People decide which Projects to Fund

The CYLAG goes through a specific process when deciding which youth projects will receive funding. This is due to them receiving more requests for funding than they have the funds for (although they always attempt to gain the extra money but sometimes it is just not within current reach). This has been the case since 2021 when their first session of funding went out to be distributed to benefit youth in the Cairngorms.

Their process includes ranking all of the youth benefiting projects based on a list of words/ concepts which the group feels have significant impacts on Youth in the Cairngorms. These could for example include ‘health and wellbeing’ ‘poverty’ ‘diversifying outreach’ etc… As I remember each member rates each project on each of these. Then the data is collated into a spreadsheet and they fund fully all the projects they can in the order they are ranked.

This seems a very democratically inclined way of deciding the projects which will have the most impact on Youth and seems to function well due to the smaller scale.

This could provide us with a process that could be tested out when beginning to distribute funds as a Moray YLAG or even just something to value when beginning to make any kind of decisions as a group.

The fourth youth project funded by the CYLAG was a group; although they were not youth young people themselves but a charity helping isolated youth in the North-East and Highland areas, called Cactus Book Club. They send out packages containing a book, often a note from the author plus a couple of treats such as facemasks or hot chocolate pouches. When I was talking to one of the organisers they were enthusiastic about the idea of giving advice/ helping to set up a similar project in Moray.

This made me think about the possibility of the Moray YLAG extending projects from other areas in Scotland as well as connecting up projects to each other if we think they would be relevant or could help each other out -- a way of forming community that would last beyond the funding’s period.

Overall, I had an amazing experience meeting all of these different people, groups and projects. There was a lot of information shared, not all of which is included in this reflection but all of which was engaging.

It did not intimidate me when thinking of the possibility of a Moray Youth Local Action Group. It inspired me to push for one as soon as possible, seeing how influential it could be to the experiences of young people all over Moray.