A new youth club will open in Saintfield at the end of the summer, with those behind the idea saying the village has been "crying out for it".
Brendan Burns and Emma Duncan, both ex-teachers living in the village, will lead the youth club which will be held in the Saintfield Community Centre.
It is being operated by the Saintfield Community Association and the hope is to run a summer scheme towards the end of summer as a preview of the club.
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Brendan told Belfast Live he had gotten involved with the community centre recently and it was something he and Emma saw a real opening for.
"It was about eight weeks ago when I started volunteering here during the day and Emma was here and we just had a big chat," he said.
"Both of us were very motivated to have a youth club and we were sort of looking at what the community association offer that the village doesn't have currently.
"If you look at every public consultation we've done over the past four or five years, if you look at any Facebook posts that are popping up[ about anti-social behaviour involving young ones or anything like that, it's just crying out for something like this.
"It just needed people that were willing to give their time and the more we chatted about it, the more it just felt like this is the right time to do this."
Emma, a community engagement officer with the Saintfield Community Association, said it was an area which wasn't really provided for at the minute.
"I'm not from Saintfield so when I came here, I walked around to get a bit of a look and get the lay of the land," she said.
"One of the things I noticed was when it came to say, older primary school kids and younger high school ones, there seems to be small pockets of them wandering around with nothing really to do.
"I think it's important especially when it comes to anti-social behaviour and stuff like that, if we can actually do something to take away that boredom we should."
Brendan said the initial plan is to run two time slots on a Saturday evening, one for 4-8-year-olds and one for 9-14-year-olds.
That will be at the community centre, which houses a large hall as well as an indoor 3G astroturf pitch.
"Obviously there'll be sports going on on the 3G, but we're looking at e-sports as a provision, sensory room offerings, so we're trying to be as open and inclusive as we can be so every aspect of the community can come in and take advantage of it," said Brendan.
"We're looking at getting a few consoles in, a few of those VR ones too, one specifically for the sensory room and just to allow kids to experience things they don't normally experience.
"There'll be arts and crafts, badminton, hopefully table tennis but again it's all dependent on grants and we've applied for quite a few.
"It'll probably be about an hour and a half for each session."
The plan for the younger groups also ties in with an American country legend's much-loved scheme.
"We're affiliated with the Dolly Parton library, we're going to get them coming down for the younger group and we'll actually read them a story too," said Brendan.
"So it'll be free play, a snack and story, then a team-based thing for the young ones.
"Our plan is if we're successful with the grants, we'll run a summer scheme as sort of a taster.
"It'll all be dependent on getting the Access NI stuff done and training our volunteers, so we will have to recruit over the next few weeks, train them up and get a bank of resources.
"It'll probably be two weeks before the summer finishes, again dependent on those grants."
Emma said they were open to giving young people in the village the chance to take on leadership roles at the Saintfield Community Youth Club as well.
"The other thing as well is that when it comes to volunteers, it's not just adult volunteers," she said.
"We can also use the older kids as well, 16-17-year-olds, people doing volunteering awards, Duke of Edinburgh awards, they can come in and be Youth Leaders within the youth club as well.
"That gives us a scope to expand as well as everything we can do for Saintfield is dependent on volunteers.
"The more volunteers we have the bigger and better the youth club can get, the more hours we can give to the community.
"If we have enough volunteers, it can move from just one night a week to possibly during the weekdays as well but again it's all dependent on the community coming out and helping us."
For now, the two youth leaders will be focusing on recruiting ahead of that soft launch come the end of summer.
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