Prince's Trust up for top awards

Ironically, it comes just weeks after Craigavon Borough Council banned the rapidly-growing hobby from its land.

Two projects implemented by the Craigavon Prince's Trust Team have been nominated for the Community Impact Award as part of the organisation's Celebrate Success Awards.

In the first project, 12 young, unemployed people aged 16 to 22 came together to develop a health initiative that would benefit the whole community.

They decided to introduce Craigavon to ‘geocaching’ - an activity which combines a love of the outdoors with the use of highly sophisticated modern technology.

The fast-growing hobby of Geocaching is like a traditional treasure hunt, but instead of having a paper map with an X marking the spot, 'cachers' use a handheld portable Global Positioning System receiver to locate their position on the earth's surface.

The group arranged an information session and invited local groups and organisations to come along where they presented the idea to the audience.

They then organised several practical events where participants could try the activity for themselves.

Just recently, council's Leisure Services department chose to ban the activity from its land in case the hobby of geocaching was used for other purposes than what it was designed for.

In the second Prince's Trust community project, 13 young unemployed people aged from 17 to 22 elected to develop a Sensory Garden at the McArts n Crafts centre.

McArts n Crafts provides vocational training to adults with severe learning difficulties and the team wanted to create a fun space to help stimulate and entertain the people using the centre.

They decided to turn an unattractive strip of waste land adjoining the centre into a Sensory Garden, a patio area, and a vegetable patch.

This would provide the facilitators with the opportunity to provide some basic training to users in horticulture as well as providing users with a relaxing outdoor area.

Nominees will be invited to attend a glamourous awards ceremony held in Newtownabbey’s Theatre at the Mill on Thursday, November 25.