A YOUTH charity aiming to reduce social isolation in the Wee County is innovating to keep some activities going under the coronavirus lockdown.

Connect Alloa has been running youth nights in the town, but like many aspects of usual life, their activities have been disrupted by the Covid-19 outbreak.

As previously reported, the charity places an emphasis on putting young people into leadership roles, as can be seen in a recent Advertiser story about its event planner Courtney Furmage and the tech-savvy admin Tony Syme.

Despite the lockdown, Connect Alloa is continuing some activities on an online platform, set up with the help of Tony.

The charity now runs its very own server on the Discord desktop and smartphone application, where young people can come together for a few hours for text, voice and video chats.

"Social distancing doesn't have to mean socially isolating" is the message, with hopes to keep activities going as much as possible.

Those who have followed the development of the charity over the past year will know that the pen and paper tabletop role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons (DnD) is extremely popular with the creative youngsters.

Thanks to the online platform, DnD can also continue in the virtual space to provide some fun and indeed, reduce social isolation.

Safety comes first of course, as Dave Crozier, the youth worker behind the Connect Alloa idea, said: "We wanted to be really secure for the staff and young people and I know LGBT Scotland use it – it was a case of us thinking about how we can make it work with the young people, for the young people."

The server is limited to only appear online at certain hours so volunteers and mentors can monitor activities.

Dave added: "In a way we are trying to take the negatives of the whole situation and make it a learning experience as well, what can we learn from this and how can we use that not just now, but moving forward."

With all activities and groups cancelled or suspended at this time, many young people may be looking for things to do in the evening after a day of online learning on the council's FLIPClacks platform.

But keeping the young people safe is a priority so for instance, plans are to only allow video chat between the young people who already have photo consent from parents.

Dave added: "It's a good team we have who accepted the fact that everything that's going on now is a lot more serious than I think a lot of people thought it was a few weeks back.

"If we can take something positive out of this and if we can help a few people then great."

While the online Connect Alloa may not be for all volunteers, as a lot are usually keen to do their bit in person when the activities are running, the Discord server is making sure there is something in place during this time of crisis.

Young people looking to get involved online twice a week in the evenings should contact the Connect Alloa Facebook page in the first instance to hear more details from Dave and the team.