What MYDG stands for is exactly what its initials signify – for Youth, for their Development, through being an ongoing, open, outwardly-facing Group, rooted in the community of Muirhouse and its adjacent areas of north Edinburgh. Fundamental to MYDG is the building and maintaining of relationships with young people, as they grow up in Muirhouse. We believe that young people are at the heart of our community. We are convinced of what they contribute to the community and we are committed to ensure that they are nurtured adequately to make positive choices in the future. We aim to motivate young people to work in partnership with their peers, volunteers, employed staff, management committees and other agencies to respond effectively to their needs. Our values are to express and exemplify the following through our activities and actions – being inclusive and accepting; being youth centred; being grounded in the community; creating positive experiences; being flexible and responsive, willing to listen and learn; being outward looking. MYDG is not a simple youth work programme. It is not a “service provider” in the most usual sense of those words. It is an indigenous organisation, committed to its own longevity; working with and through its local community; with young people finding and making their places within it as they grow up, as they gain independence, and as they become able and capable of being increasingly responsible for steering MYDG and ensuring that it creates opportunities for others who come along after themselves.