IFI Funds a Shared Future

The initiatives include a new Shared Future Neighbourhood Programme which aims to support the development of integrated housing in Northern Ireland. Working with the Northern Ireland Housing Executive and other partners in the voluntary and statutory sector, the Programme aims to build on the successful launch of the integrated Carran Crescent Scheme in Enniskillen, establishing support for communities who wish to establish their own areas as Shared Future Neighbourhoods.

Support available to local communities through the Programme will include training for community workers to become ‘champions’ of shared housing, working to promote and develop it in their own areas. It is hoped that the Programme will result in up to 30 Shared Future Neighbourhoods being created in the next three years. The Fund’s total investment in the Programme is £698,000.

In addition the Fund has launched a £550,000 (€803,000) Integrating Community Organisations programme. This will offer community organisations a chance to mix on both a cross community and a cross border basis, developing mutual respect and confidence, ultimately leading to greater integration between organisations of different backgrounds and experiences. The Programme will feature Good Relations and Diversity training, networking, study groups as well as supporting organisations who want to develop partnerships or joint projects.

In addition, the Fund has announced £1.6m (€2.34m) of support for a range of initiatives through its Community Bridges Programme. This includes a funding of over £300,000 (€438,000) for the Sesame Workshop, which will produce up to twenty 15 minute episodes of a Northern Ireland version of Sesame Street, addressing issues of conflict, discrimination, prejudice and sectarianism, supported by educational materials and a website.

Through its Community Based Economic and Social Regeneration Programme, the Fund has also extended its support for a pilot programme designed to maximise community use of rural halls on a cross community basis. Following the initial success of this programme, the Fund is providing a further £249,744 (€364,626) to extend this activity.

Speaking at the International Fund for Ireland’s Board meeting in Londonderry last week, Fund Chairman Denis Rooney said: “This latest funding announcement is a clear demonstration of the Fund’s commitment to supporting innovative, ground breaking projects which can potentially deliver real and lasting change in the way in which we live in Northern Ireland and the border counties.

“All of the initiatives we have agreed to support today are clearly focused on building a sustainable and lasting peace in our society, by which I mean not just the absence of violence or paramilitary activity but a genuine end to the fear, prejudice and sectarianism that have lead to segregated communities. We regard all of these projects as meaningful steps on the road to ensuring that this generation and the next can live, work and learn together.”

Today’s announcement also includes the following grants through the International Fund for Ireland’s Community Bridges Programme:

• £192,971 (€281,738) for LINC Resource Centre in the Mount Vernon area of Belfast to develop a three year community relations mentoring programme;
• £287,330 (€419,502)of funding for the Irish School of Ecumenics for new inter-Church activities and reconciliation programmes;
• £410,250 (€598,965) for Playing for Peace, a basketball based reconciliation programme in Northern Ireland;
• £328,509 (€479,623) for Donegal Youth Service/Tyrone Donegal Partnership to develop cross border and cross community links between youth organisations in the Strabane/Lifford area
• £163,190 (€238,257) for the Gerry Rogan Initiative Trust (GRIT) to run reconciliation focused residential programmes for young people in north and west Belfast.
• £165,299 (€241,336) for the Lower Shankill Community Association to develop and implement a three year community relations initiative, addressing sectarianism and developing tangible cross community and cross border partnerships.

Funding announced today also includes the support through the International Fund for Ireland’s Community Based Economic and Social Regeneration Programme as follows:

• additional assistance of £250,000 (€365,000) for Ballymote Multi-Functional Facility, Downpatrick, Co. Down. This centre is part of an ongoing programme of community relations in the Flying Horse area in Downpatrick.
• £202,678 (€295,910) for Comhlacht Togra Rann na Feirste Teo, Co. Donegal. This cross community company plans to develop a heritage, education and resource centre in the local area.

The International Fund for Ireland is an international organisation established by the Irish and British Governments in 1986 with the objectives of promoting economic and social advance and of encouraging contact, dialogue and reconciliation between unionists and nationalists throughout Ireland. Contributors to the Fund are the United States, the European Union, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. Since its inception, the Fund has committed more than £576m/EUR 849m to a wide variety of projects in Northern Ireland and the border counties.

The Fund’s budget for 2007 is £21 million/ EUR 31 million. Funding priorities include grassroots level reconciliation and cross-community projects. In addition, the Fund seeks to address the root causes of deprivation in the most disadvantaged areas by using shared economic concerns as a platform for regeneration and cross-community activity. The Fund will also continue its pioneering work with children and young people throughout the North and border counties.

http://www.internationalfundforireland.com