By Gillian McVeigh
gillian@monaghanpost.com

CASTLEBLAYNEY charities may be missing out on the chance to win a €10,000 cash boost in the AIB ‘Better Ireland’ awards as ‘Blayney’ has been misspelt in the text vote.

One community organisation that has been adversely affected by this mistake is the Castleblayney Youth Café. To vote for the Youth Café the public are asked to text CBLANEYC to 53099.

The letter ‘y’ had been omitted from the word ‘Blayney’ and this is causing some of the text votes that have included the letter, to not be accepted.

The Youth Café is one of three Castleblayney projects that has been shortlisted as one of the local deserving children’s projects in contention for a €10,000 award from AIB Castleblayney.

The Youth Café which is located on York Street, was officially opened by Minister Brendan Smith on Friday. The former Minister for Children congratulated Castleblayney Youth Café Consortium for its work in establishing the youth café.

He said the local Community deserved great credit for starting this Café whose purpose is to provide young people with a safe, secure and alcohol free environment to socialise and to address the issue of alcohol use and abuse. The Minister also welcomed the organisers’ goal of developing educational programmes and workshops for young people and parents

The Minister stated that the National Recreation Policy for Young People, which he launched last September, demonstrated the Government’s commitment to improving the recreational opportunities of young people and that establishment of “youth cafés” was identified by young people as their single biggest need during the consultations. The Minister went on to state that the Office of the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs is in the process of promoting the development of a coherent, structured approach to the promotion of youth cafes.

In conclusion, the Minister thanked Mary Lynch and the members of the Castleblayney Youth Café Consortium for the invitation to launch the Youth Café and wished everyone associated with the project continued success in their endeavor to develop and promote the Café.

To vote for the Youth Café text CBLANEYC to 53099. Don’t forget to omit the ‘y’!