YOUNGSTERS from Consett YMCA will be forging international links when they travel to Europe this summer to represent the region at two separate events.

One group will travel to Prague in August to take part in the YMCA Europe Youth Festival, while young footballers from the club will be defending the region's honour at a soccer tournament in Germany in July.

Joining the group in Prague will be five teenagers from a poverty-stricken town in the former Soviet Union after the Consett youngsters raised cash to send them on the trip of a lifetime.

The ten girls, aged 16 to 18, and their five companions from Dubnov in Russia, will join more than 8,000 young people from across Europe for the event.

The joint trip follows a pioneering visit to Consett by top Russian youth leader, Misha Kuschkov, in February, in a bid to forge better links between youngsters in the North-East and Russia.

Colonel Kuschkov met youth centre bosses in the region to set up an exchange programme.

Staff at the Consett centre heard how the YMCA in Russia could not afford to send any youngsters to the youth festival and decided to help.

Billy Robson, of Consett YMCA, said: "These kids in Russia really have got nothing. We felt that, as we are getting an exchange programme going between us, it would be a good thing to do."

The Consett club is also sending its 20-strong soccer squad of under-15s boys to Tubingen in southern Germany, on July 11, to compete in a European contest aimed at under-17s. They will be playing against their hosts, plus teams from France, Italy, Switzerland and Russia.

Mr Robson, said: "The team we are sending out is a bit younger than the age limit, but we are still confident that they will compete well."

The contest is held every two years as part of Tubingen's town festival, when residents invite people from all their exchange partners to join in the fun.

Youngsters from the YMCA visited Tubingen in 1999, through Durham County Council's exchange scheme. The trip was such a success that the festival organisers asked the Consett team back.

All the teams taking part stay at a campsite set up next to the football ground, giving youngsters from different countries the chance to mingle.

Brian Stobie, the council's international officer, said: "Teams from Consett YMCA have taken part in similar events in the past and have always provided good opposition for the international teams they have come across.

"This sort of trip is a good way for young lads, who might not have been attracted to a conventional exchange trip, to meet new friends from very different countries."