Sligo Peace Plan - Project Actions
The Sligo peace plan is based on the outcome of public consultation which identified a number of issues specific to Sligo. These issues transferred in a number of strategic priorities to be addressed through a series of project actions:-
- Political / Historical Perspectives
- Women and Peace
- Youth Education
- Urban Peace Building
- Diversity Training
- Interfaith Programme
- Conflict Resolution and Mediation Training
- Sport and Peace
- Traveller and Peace
- Culture / Arts / Heritage
- Rural Peace Building
- New Communities and Peace
- Rita McNulty speaking at the launch of the Sligo Peace III Action Plan
Political / Historical Perspectives - The Legacy of Belief
The project is being delivered by a partnership between Sligo Arts Office and Eithne Verling, Museum & Cultural Resources Consultant and will seek to explore the impact of Anglo Irish heritage, partition and the Northern Ireland conflict on Sligo. This will be achieved through an interactive project looking at the history of Sligo as a Garrison Town and community dialogue to raise awareness of shared local heritage and its impact across communities and cultures.
The 'Legacy of Belief' project will seek to examine a number of themes
- the effect of Partition and the Northern Ireland conflict on Sligo
- the historical and contemporary implications of Sligo as a garrison town
- the stories of those affected by sectarianism in Sligo
- the influence and legacy of the Anglo-Irish in Sligo and the Region
- contemporary Sligo – peace and multiculturalism
Contact: Mary McDonagh 071 91 11822 mmcdonag@sligococo.ie
Women & Peace - Mh Consultancy
Women Co-Authoring Sligo Peace-Building Project
The Sligo Women’s peace project works from an understanding that conflict and violence is also experienced by women within the wider context of sexism. The programme develops previous women’s work of building cross-border/cross-community relationships by deepening their understanding of peace building within communities that have a diverse population, including ethnic minorities/ different religious practices.
We want to try and bring recognition to the role that women currently play in working with conflict and peace building, within their own communities and to lobby at an international level for greater inclusion and support for the role women play and could play further if our role was recognized.
Contact Details: Marie Hainsworth 086 2313964 mhconsultant@eircom.net
Youth Education - Junior Achievement
Sharing Our Community
The County Sligo “Sharing Our Community” project will target 200 secondary school students from four local schools in Sligo. The “Sharing Our Community” project has four elements:
- Classroom based workshops
- A Reconciliation Project
- Cross Community Event
- Cross Border Event
On completion of the “Sharing Our Community” project, students will have a better understanding of difference and diversity and will have learned to challenge attitudes to sectarianism and racism.
Contact Details: Siobhan Kelly 086 7707177 skelly@jai.ie
Youth Education - Foróige
Comhairle na nÓg Sligo
The central theme to the work of this Youth Education Project will be developing a positive attitude to diversity amongst young people with a view to creating a culture that young people from all walks can contribute to society, in particular Comhairle as the established and recognised structure for participation in Co. Sligo. The work will bring young people including those across the border and minorities together with a common purpose of exploring and promoting diversity under the headings of culture, race and religion.
Contact Details: Anne Marie Regan 071 91 46596 annmarie.kelly@foroige.ie
Urban Peace Building - Sligo Rapid Programme
Rapid Urban Collective
This project action is being delivered through a partnership of Sligo based community, voluntary and statutory groups/agencies - RAPID Area Implementation Team, Sligo Traveller Support Group, Mail Coach Road Community Centre Ltd, Cranmore Community Co-operative, Touch the Sky Performance Group - Model Niland and RehabCare, Northside Community Resource Centre, Sligo Education Centre, Sligo Immigrant Organisation
This project will focus on community dialogue and exchange through shared interests / achievements and common concerns with a number of the most disadvantaged urban areas in Sligo. It offers opportunities for partnership and cross-border development work. With a range of activities to suit all ages and abilities it will provide the opportunity for urban communities to come together to build relationships and address issues relating to sectarianism and racism.
Contact Details: Helen O’Hara 071 91 11832 hohara@sligococo.ie
Diversity Training - Sligo Community Forum & Claire Galligan
Sligo County Community Forum will be hosting a range of diversity training events to promote greater understanding between different groups and challenge discrimination, sectarianism and racism.
To start there will be two one-off training days in inter-culturalism in 2010. In addition to this, a FETAC level 4 course in intercultural studies will be running for 12 nights starting in January 2010.
For community organisers and leaders a residential to visit projects who address racism and inter-ethnic conflict as part of their work (summer 2010) is being offered.
The last element of the diversity project will be a conference in September 2010, it will include practical workshops and guest speakers to discuss how we can challenge racism and sectarianism through a community development approach.
Contact Details: Claire Galligan 071 91 11814 galliganclaire@eircom.net
Interfaith Programme - Riverstown Enterprise Development (Sligo)
Moving Beyond Sectarianism
This programme was inspired by and builds on the initial work of the Riverbrooke Cross-Border Initiative Churches Programme undertaken with the support of the Peace II Programme.
The project action will include a research element, local and cross-border discussion groups, cross-border exchanges and inter-school activities. This project action will engage with people from Sligo, Fermanagh and Tyrone.
The project action aims to provide an opportunity to explore, through facilitated discussion, the legacy of the conflict and the challenge of reconciliation and dealing with our past as members of Churches and Faith Groups.
Contact Details: Mary Daly 087 7932784 mary.daly@care4free.net
Conflict Resolution & Mediation Training - Peace By Peace Training
Peace by Peace Training (Sligo), in partnership with the Peace and Reconciliation Group (Derry/Londonderry), will deliver a broad range of conflict resolution and mediation training. It is proposed that there be four levels of training:
- Introductory courses on Understanding Conflict delivered at four locations throughout Sligo.
- A six-day course on Intermediate Conflict Resolution and Mediation to be held in Sligo with visits to Derry/Londonderry.
- A ten-day course on Advanced Conflict Resolution and Mediation will follow this course. This accredited course will allow participants the opportunity of registering with the Mediators Institute of Ireland. It is planned that there be two training sessions (four days) delivered in Derry/Londonderry.
- Following completion those participants who desire will be given additional mentoring/support to root their learning within their community. This would include support organising and delivering their own training session or mediation practice. This aspect of the programme will serve as a pilot for the development of community mediation services in Sligo.
Contact Details: Noreen Callaghan 071 91 43873 /087 2266844 noreen@indigo.ie
Sport & Peace - Sligo Sport & Recreation Partnership
Sporting Peace
This project action is being delivered through a partnership of Sligo Sports & Recreation Partnership, Sligo VEC and Copius Consultancy NI.
It is a cross-border club/community sports project involving strategic collaboration between community and public sectors in the Sligo, Omagh and Fermanagh regions. The project will include implementation of strategic models of collaboration between the public and community sectors that focus on reconciliation, cultural diversity and equality.
This model which aims to develop a shared, peaceful and understanding society through the medium of sport and is based upon 3 key pillars, which involves:
- Pillar 1 – Sporting peace through club sport programme
- Pillar 2 – Sporting peace cross-border programme
- Pillar 3 – sporting peace through leadership & empowerment
Contact Details: Diane Middleton 071 91 61511 diane@sligosportandrecreation.ie
Travellers & Peace - Traveller Support Group
This Traveller lead project action aims are;
- To facilitate a space where Traveller men, women and youth can safely break the silence that exists around Northern Ireland conflict and the lessons that can be learned from peace-building processes.
- To provide opportunities for open meaningful dialogue/communication aimed at building trust and tolerance between Settled and Traveller communities in Sligo and across the border.
- To provide opportunities and undertake activities that explore inter-culturalism, racism, equality, conflict and conflict transformation, cultural diversity, sectarianism & issues of identity amongst Travellers
Contact Details: Bernadette Maughan 071 91 45780 stsg@eircom.net
Culture / Arts / Heritage - Arts Office Sligo County Council
The Yeatsian Legacy
This project will be delivered in partnership with the Arts Office, Sligo County Council, Model Arts & Niland Gallery, Strule Arts Centre, Omagh, and Institute of Technology. Sligo and Stacey Herbert, Consultant Curator. This project action aims to promote an understanding of cultural heritage and the sharing experiences and expressions of different cultures by exploring the Yeatsian legacy and its impact on the identity of the county and region.
Through a series of literary, education and talks programmes and exhibitions the project will seek to examine themes from a number of different perspectives.
- the influence and legacy of the Yeats Family in Sligo and the Region
- the influence and legacy of the Anglo-Irish in Sligo and the Region
- the effect of Partition and the Northern Ireland conflict on Sligo
- the stories of those affected by sectarianism and racism in Sligo
- contemporary Sligo – peace and multiculturalism
- contemporary Sligo – cultural identity
Contact Details: Mary McDonagh 071 91 11822 mmcdonag@sligococo.ie
Rural Peace Building - Sligo Leader Partnership Company Ltd
The Rural Peace Building Action will facilitate the Rural community in County Sligo to come together on a cross-community basis and to engage with Rural Communities in NI through a series of cross-community and cross-border events, workshops, residentials, study visits and social activities. These will promote, preserve and celebrate a shared rural heritage, a shared rural landscape, a shared rural experience and a shared rural cultural identity.
The Rural Peace Building Project has five elements:-
- Exploring Protestant Culture /Identity/History in a Rural Context:
- Promoting Community Inclusion and Capacity through Creative Arts
- Growing Friendships, Growing Older:
- Shared Agricultural/Rural Interest:
- Development Supports for Broad Spectrum Community Initiatives with existing linkages which reinforce progress to a peaceful society and promoting reconciliation
Contact Details: Camilla Smyth 071 91 41138 csmyth@sligoleader.com
Sligo Peace Plan - Small Grants Scheme
Open Call For Applications - Information Workshop
A small grants scheme was included in the Sligo peace plan in recognition of the needs of small groups who were interested in a peace agenda. Grants were given for actions which clearly addressed the issues of Sectarianism and Racism through awareness raising of focused on-going programmes of activity. Round one of the small grants scheme funded the following projects:-
Sligo Sports And Recreation Partnership Ltd
Sports Unites
Sport Unites is an initiative working to promote racial equality in communities through the medium of sport. It aims to develop policies and working practices that promote racial equality by working with sport clubs/ organisations / agencies in the community, which will encourage people from new communities to participate in sport and undertake sports leadership, coaching, volunteering in sport. The proposed project will ensure a co-ordinated approach and will provide opportunities in sport for new communities in local sports clubs, schools and leisure and community facilities.
Contact Details: Diane Middleton 071 91 61511 diane@sligosportandrecration.ie
St Patricks Day Parade Committee
Parade Steps to Peace
The project seeks to highlight all the diverse cultural, social and commercial activity relevant to Sligo City and its environs and to facilitate its public acceptance and celebration annually in Sligo’s St. Patrick’s Day Parade. Inherent to the attainment of this is the establishment and maintenance of a strong and harmonious working relationship with a network of 11 Northern Ireland community bands of a Loyalist and Protestant tradition. In this regard Sligo’s St. Patrick’s Day Parade has already enjoyed considerable success and only as late as last year a Lambeg Drum band which took part in the parade, was the first to perform publicly south of the border.
Contact Details: Vincent Blighe 071 91 73166 blighe@live.ie
Sligo Leadership Partnership Company Ltd
Recall
Our goal is to create the means whereby through a process of cross-community collaboration members from disenfranchised communities create and share something which they both value, thus providing the basis for improved trust, understanding, and reconciliation between groups. We aim to redress the imbalance perpetuated by previous Peace efforts by including the Traveller perspective in the collective experience of the conflict and its impact on people from both sides of the border.
Contact Details: Jonathan May 071 91 41138 jmay@sligoleader.com
The Catalyst Club
Salt - (Sligo & Lurgan Together)
The Catalyst Club is a club that was set up some three years ago to cater for people of the community over fifty. Our aim is to provide a programme, which will cater for people’s Body, Mind and Spirit. Our desire, indeed part of our mission is to be effective in a cross border situation. This was one of our founding objectives and our desire is to meet with a similar group to build up community relations at local level and also to engage in discussions/workshops which would have lasting benefits for both Communities. We wish to meet with the Cedars Club which is part of the Jethro Project in Lurgan. This is a similar project to ours and was indeed set up by Cyril and Liz McIllhenny. Both of whom had the vision for the Catalyst Club.
Contact Details: Dougie Colvin 071 91 77213 dandmcolvin@gmail.com
Mcr Community Centre Ltd
MCR Youth Group
Over the last five years the area has changed dramatically through development unemployment and the impact of the Sligo Development Plan. With the change in our community resentment and anger has set in, which in turn has led to young people fighting, arguing over why “these people” are here and as result bring what they hear at home into the centre and our community.
Our aim is to provide an opportunity for young people in this area to come together and both discuss and challenge their thinking and behaviour in relation to race.
Contact Details: Marcella McGarry 071 91 46512 mcrco@eircom.net
Cairde Festival
Park Fest
Park::fest is a day long multicultural celebration involving music, performance, art workshops, arts & crafts and a global food market and this will take place in the Peace Park on July 12th as part of the Cairde festival 2009. Many of the performances will arise out of year long cross community, cross border collaborative work. For example there will be outdoor performances by Sligo and Omagh Youth theatres. This performance will arise out of a collaboration which will take place between March and July 2009. The same performance will also be presented during the Carnival in Omagh on June 20th.
Contact Details: Tara McGowan 071 91 70431 / taramcgowan@blueraincoat.com
Joyn
Flags for Peace
The project uses art to address cultural diversity, racism and social isolation in primary schools. In consultation with the Home Youth Liaison Officer for the Travelling Community and the Traveller Men’s Development Worker for SLPC we identified a need to work towards cultural integration of Traveller children, Immigrants and Irish settled (Catholic and Protestants) children in schools.
The children will get an opportunity to explore difference and how to build positive relationships with each other through creativity in a series of 3 workshops, one of which will be meeting with another school. We will be using the theme of the Tibetan prayer flags, which traditionally are used to promote peace, compassion, strength and wisdom. Each child will create their own flag depicting aspects of their vision of a shared future, based on the experiences they gained in the experiential workshops. All the flags will be raised in a celebration for all children during the Cairde Festival in July 2009.
Contact Details: Pia Luck 087 7752361 joyn.us.now@gmail.com
Sligo Traveller Support Group
Men’s Inter-Cultural Communications & Social Awareness Project
Young men from Traveller and settled communities will participate in 36 sessions of an arts based Intercultural Communication programme aiming to build understanding between Travellers and settled populations, create positive social relationships, increase awareness of life issues such as drug awareness, build pathways to wider opportunity and capacity to successfully adjust to wider society following imprisonment.
Use a range of art based mediums, narrative storytelling and culturally appropriate teaching exercises, together with social support mechanisms over a total of 36 sessions, the project will work towards combating racism and cultural stereotypes. Participants (at least a total of 30) will develop intercultural knowledge and sensitivity, and be facilitated towards social/intercultural competencies, adding to community cohesion.
Contact Details: Bernadette Maughan 071 91 54409 stsg@eircom.net
Sligo Leadership Partnership Company Ltd
The Sligo Omagh Cross Border Intercultural Community Arts Project
Participation of the Polish Sunday School in Sligo with young people from disadvantaged areas in Sligo Town in a series of collaborative arts based performance workshops culminating in a performance at the CAIRDE Festival in Sligo. The performance arts workshops will also include age appropriate themes designed to address and tackle any negative behaviour’s and attitudes which exist between the Irish and Polish children.
Participation of the Sligo Group with the Polish Sunday School in Omagh. This will be inclusive of a performance at the “Strule Arts Centre in Omagh” and complemented by recreation Activities hosted by the Omagh Group at the ‘House of Fun’ and supported by the Omagh Ethnic Support Group.
Both groups will also participate in a Café World Networking event which will be designed to encourage conversations which link and build on the experience of both groups as they move between each area and share ideas and discover new insights into the questions and issues that are most important in their life, work and community.
Contact Details: Camilla Smyth 071 91 41138 csmyth@sligoleader.com
Ballintrillick Environmental Group
Darty Youth Group – Peace Project
This project will help to consolidate a new Cross Community Youth Group in our area, by a process of team building, activities and project work. The work undertaken will also address prejudices, racism and conflict through educational workshops and working together cross community. We aim to hold 4 full day facilitated workshops with the existing Group. Then join with a Group of Youths from a parish of different denomination (Church of Ireland, Drumcliffe) to complete a further weekend workshop. Then under subsequent funding (2010) for this group to join with a Cross Border Youth Group and complete 2 residential workshops.
Contact Details: Katherine Williams 071 91 76721 katherinewilliams@eircom.net
Northside Community Resource Centre
Interculturalism Training for Project Staff and Volunteers
We want to provide intercultural training for our project staff and volunteers so as to raise their awareness of intercultural issues, challenge any negative perceptions, promote positive appreciation of diversity, and enable us to develop our team’s ability to create positive social change to the highest possible standards. Combating racism is a priority for us as we have a large number of new community members in our area and there has been a rise in racist and xenophobic attitudes and activities in Sligo town. We have a large contingent of volunteers and staff who wok directly with young people and we believe this is a key area for this type of work. We also need to ensure that our own analysis and practice is in line with best practice in anti-discriminatory community and youth work.
Contact Details: Ann Donegan 071 91 46254 sligonorthside@hotmail.com
Sligo Leadership Partnership Company Ltd
Promoting Inter-Culturalism in Youth Work
After compiling research on non-Irish youth aged 12 to 18, we will organize a consultation with them using creative methodologies about their identify and experiences of integration / segregation, discrimination, sectarianism and racism. We will consult their parents about activities young people engage in and their perception of services. In the third phase, we will consult young Irish people about their perceptions of non-Irish youth. In the fourth phase, we will organize training for people engaged in Youth Work in order to promote interculturalism. Finally, we will run dynamic workshops for all the youths, first in their own youth clubs, then all together. We will also establish a steering group of relevant agencies and strategic partners to monitor the project and promote interculturalism in Youth Work. We will expect Youth Workers to give a presentation on interculturalism to their employer.
Contact Details: Josette Newman 071 91 41138 jnewman@sligoleader.com
Cranmore Community Co-Operative
Cranmore Branching Out
A range of activities to support participants in becoming a more informed, caring tolerant community which has the confidence to reach out to the weaker members of the community and beyond to create a bright future for the people of Cranmore and Omagh where children growing up can learn from the positive example in their neighborhood.
Contact Details: Helen O’Hara 071 91 49951 cranmorecoop@eircom.net
© Sligo County Council, County Hall, Riverside, Sligo, Co. Sligo. Tel:071 9111111 Fax:071 9141119 Email:info@sligococo.ie