Our AbJam Experience

“Inspiration”, “Creative”, “Whirlwind of Emotion”, “Fantastic”, “Nerve wracking”, “ Fun”

– just a few words that our AbJam Young Planners used to describe how they felt about planning AbJam 2021!

In January 2021, a group of eight amazing young people from Aberlour services across the country got together to plan AbJam 2021. AbJam is a chance for young people supported by Aberlour to get together each year to have fun, make new friends, learn new skills and be listened to.

This year, over 40 young people were involved on and offline over the AbJam weekend. Everyone enjoyed activities such as a quiz, film premier, workshops on topics from fitness to mental health to learning to tie dye, scavenger hunt, comedy & tonnes more.

The AbJam Young Planners recently got together online (and let a couple of the older folk who helped join too) to talk about what it’s been like to be a young planner. We all agreed with Vange that at times it had been “stressful but exciting” and there were lots of nods when Matthew talked about his feeling of “accomplishment on knowing that you’ve made something that’s really going to happen and seeing how far you’ve come.” Cameron’s ideas about it changed when he shared that initially he thought it would be “pure heavy hard work but it wasn’t – it was actually really fun.”

One of the big positives for everyone was feeling part of something and although we are all unique, “we unified as a team to bring our vision to life.” Although initially everyone agreed that it was a little scary & daunting to come together online, Cammy-Jo reminded us that the group worked together to make a “nice, comforting place” to meet, and Robert told us how having familiar faces in the group helped lower any worries.

Cameron summed up our AbJam journey as “a bit stressful, nerve wracking and just spectacular.”

Roll on AbJam 2022!

Find out more about AbJam here>>