Community Relations Council
Equity Diversity Interdependence
Promoting a Peaceful and Fair
Society based on Reconciliation
and Mutual Trust.
North West Cluster Event
18 May 2010
The Community Relations Council’s Community Bridges Programme, which is funded by the International Fund for Ireland, held a networking event for its funded groups in the North West region of the Province on Monday 26th April 2010.
Staff from Community Relations Council along with Community Bridges funded groups and members of the International Fund for Ireland get together with the Interactive Maps.
As part of Community Relations Week the Cluster Event saw groups from L/Derry and across the North West area, including Donegal come together to network and discuss their future plans. The main focus of the event was mapping and the groups partook in an interactive mapping session which allowed them to see their and other’s areas of work. This task proved very successful as the groups were able to see potential opportunities for future collaborative work to access areas they had not yet been active in. A group discussion followed allowing an opportunity for the participants to discuss their workloads, issues in their areas and what the future held for them.
The event was chaired by Joe Hinds, Director of Community Bridges, CRC and talks were given by Dr Duncan Morrow, CEO of Community Relations Council and Ken Gibson, Northern Secretariat for the International Fund for Ireland. Comments from Duncan and Ken set the tone of the event as groups were reminded that their funding was in its twilight phase and plans needed to be made to secure their sustainability in the future.
The groups were all given contact details for one another and encouraged to make a move towards working together in the future. Event feedback was positive and the groups relished the opportunity to find out about one another; one participant commented that they would like to “work collaboratively with other concerned groups; partnerships need to be real and live, not forced or fake for funding only.”
The Community Bridges Team hope that this introduction will facilitate future engagement between groups and allow them to become sustainable and leave a legacy of their work.
