My name is Kevin Durrant and I am 21 years old and have been staying at the Birkenhead YMCA for the last 2 months. Not that long ago I felt as if my whole life was upside-down and I had no hope of going anywhere other than downwards.

How I came to be at the YM is a long story but basically after a series of family tragedies I found myself with nowhere to go and when things got really bad ended up on the streets. Luckily for me I was told about the night-time safe refuge at the YMCA and met Rod Graham the Night Manager. Thanks to Rod I not only had somewhere warm and dry to stay overnight but he also helped get me referred into accommodation where I have been happily settled ever since.

Since I have been at the YMCA I have been involved in a number of volunteering activities which started with work in the gardens tending to all the new summer bedding plants and looking after the lawns and borders. After a while I was offered the chance to try a boat training course which I found quite difficult but I have persevered and eventually I've learnt everything. In July I went to the Vintage Wooden Boat gathering at Beccles in Suffolk and helped out with setting up the shoreside facilities and met lots of different people from all walks of life. It was good for me in a number of ways but I think most of all because I made a lot of new friends and people saw me and the other lads as normal people and not the bad images sometimes tagged to young people. Everyone was so friendly it was a great experience.

In the last couple of weeks I have started training on the Foundation Course in Catering and Hospitality. The course has already opened my eyes to a lot of new stuff that is so important in this type of work – basic food hygiene, customer service and customer care, correct table settings, glasses, wines and even specialised information about things like tea, coffee, spirits and the wine regions of the world. I'm really optimistic about everything these days and in the last few days I have been able to put my learning to good use as I'm now getting real life experience in the YM's Cyber Cafe which is really useful for me.