Da Café

Aim

Da Café is a youth-led project that aims to provide a safe, warm and free space for young people aged 14-25.

Who are we?

We are the OPEN Project, we currently operate under Voluntary Action Shetland. We are a youth-led project based in Lerwick and we carry out a range of work with young people across Shetland. The project we are looking to secure funding for is Da Café. We currently run Da Café Mondays 4pm-6pm and Thursday 4pm-6pm and we see on average 50 young people each week. 

Da Café is a free space for young people aged 14-25, they do not have the pressure to buy something to be there. On Thursday's we give out £5 vouchers to every young person so that they can get themselves something to eat and drink and on Monday's there is the option to use pay it forward's donated by the community. 

We carried out peer research from October 2021-June 2022 and this identified the need for a youth-led, affordable and comfortable space for young people in Lerwick which has further been proved by the turn out we have had at Da Café. We continue to work alongside young people for the development of this project.  

OPEN Space Project research team.

Community impact

Young people are at the heart of what we do. We identified the need for a space dedicated for young, when there was a lot of negative talk about young people hanging out in public spaces in the media we saw our numbers at Da Café rise exponentially. 

We want young people to feel valued within our community and have the same opportunities young people had 20 years ago. Creating this with young people will have an impact on wellbeing and confidence levels on everyone involved. 

One of the top priorities identified by young people in our research was the need for free or affordable food, this need has likely only increased since then with the cost of living crisis. It is an important part of Da Café that we can provide either free or discounted rates each week, ensuring young people who use this space do not need to worry about spending money to utilise Da Café. There is no pressure to buy anything to be there either. 

We encourage young people to take the lead with this project supported by staff, promoting the development of their skills in areas such as leadership, creativity, organisational and facilitation. We work in a person-centred way, working to each individual's strengths and interests. 

Why are we crowdfunding?

We currently only have funding secured to provide free food on Thursday's and open on Monday's until the end of March. While we could continue to open on Thursday's without the offer of free food these sessions may lose some of their value, specifically as the cost of living crisis continues to add pressure to our community. 

We aim to grow this project with young people as well, but while we do this we would still like to provide the Monday and Thursday sessions as we work on this. 

Young people at Da Café 

How we’ll spend the money raised

We plan to use this money towards running costs where we need to, this could be to cover food/drinks provided to ensure the young people are getting something hot to eat or drink or it could be going towards ensuring there is 2 members of staff able to work at each session. Having staff present at these sessions are vital for the safeguarding and support of young people attending. 

This project successfully funded on 24th March 2023