SOS NI Update

Joe Hyland MBE, CEO SOS NI addressed the Club Monday 22 May reflecting on their work over the last 12 months. He pointed out that they have 3 main areas with a 4th in development.

Nightime Economy – crisis intervention: they provide care, support and professional medical intervention to anyone (young people, the homeless, domestic violence sufferers etc.) vulnerable and in crisis on the streets of Belfast each weekend though in the main to young people. He stressed that austerity was reducing services to 3rd world country levels; the new drug on the streets 'spice' is many times more potent than marijuana, they deal mainly with excess alcohol issues but often face a cocktail of problems and the cost of running the programme is £280,000pa.

Schools Programme – early intervention: they work in schools to empower young people to help them cope with life and make better lifestyle choices when facing temptations. He pointed out that in reality numerical choices are easy but value based propositions are much more difficult and there are always moments of indecision and advised that a monk he had met in England told him the question young people need to ask is "what do I want to be in 10 years?"; then give them the tools to make this strategic decision of what they want out of life and the other questions will answer themselves. He pointed out that the programme cost £50,000 last year but they were limited by time and quality personnel - more funds would facilitate expansion of the programme with more people getting into more schools.

Food Programme: SOS volunteers collect perishable surplus food from supermarkets every night from 9-11pm for delivery to food banks and charitable organisations in a van donated by Isaac Agnew. Around 4,500 people pw are helped in this way which also releases funds to be used in other ways.

Concluding he noted that SOS NI costs around £10,000 per week to run but the cost of not offering such 'love' would be vast.