Scalloway Youth Café provides an exciting, safe environment for young people to come together in the heart of Scalloway.
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Established in October 2013 and provides a welcoming, safe environment for young people to come together, meet their friends, learn new skills through volunteering, tell us what they want or just relax and chill, there is something for everyone from 10 years and up at the Youth Cafe. We have had a number of grant agencies funding the Youth Cafe Project over the years as well as local people such as Howard Foster with his Sumburgh to Muckle Flugga Walk and Gilbert Inkster with his half Marathon.
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“the best day of my life was when I was 10 (2 years ago). It was my first day and I fell in love with the Youth Cafe and I have only missed 12 days since”
Youth Cafe
Saturday nights is the place to go: open from 6.30pm until 9.45pm. There are sports in the main hall; music available in the music room; pool, snooker, darts in the games room; space to chill in the cafe area and consoles to play as well as lots of other activities – just let us know what you want to do. There are lots of opportunities to volunteer in the cafe area or help in any of the rooms and build up awards such as Saltire and Dynamic Youth Awards. We have had over 55 young people volunteering since we started.
“I like helping at the Youth Cafe”
“I want to be a volunteer next time”
Our signature drink is still the famous Milk Shake and we have a snow cone machine as well. We have recently purchased two Nintendo Switch consoles and games to welcome everyone back following lockdown.
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Due to COVID we have had to restrict numbers in each of the rooms and have every measure in place to ensure that everyone is as safe as possible, such as hand sanitisers and hygiene stations in every room as well as a robust cleaning schedule.
The giant milk shake with four compartments was one of the prizes for winning Stop the Bus game. “I really like the chocolate milk shakes”
Catriona was our first volunteer to reach 500 hours Saltire and received her Summit Award for being an exceptional volunteer, she did well over 1000 hours before we employed her as a youth worker. “Catriona says she is a completely different person now, more confident and has gained leadership skills and works as part of a team”
Young people were involved in the Re-create Scalloway/Making places consultation seeing how difficult it was to go around Scalloway as a less able person and this was fed back to the consultants.
Trip to Unst prior to the set up of Chillax