An easy way to find out what's happening

A new resource was launched officially today in the North West for anyone looking for information on voluntary and community activity or social policy issues.

Community NI (www.communityni.org) is a huge step forward in information and comment, developed and run by the NICVA.

It provides up to date and wide ranging information about voluntary and community activity and helps to ensure the sector gets its messages across to the public in an increasingly cluttered world of communications.

The portal (launched April 2005) will make it easy for voluntary and community organisations to promote their work by classifying their information geographically and by theme. They can also publish job vacancies, read a calendar of events or get the information they need.

AUDIENCE

People involved in government, research, the media or members of the public can use the site to find out about policies and events affecting children, education, the environment, equality, health, human rights, older people, poverty and many other issues covered by the voluntary and community sector.

Communication is not one-way but aims to promote discussion through a 'Have Your Say' box at the end of every article, allowing people to send comments straight away.

The site, funded by Invest NI, serves as an online resource and a 'yellow pages' to many hundreds of organisations. It is called a portal because it is a single gateway to information, in one place, about the voluntary and community sector. One of the sites is Grant Tracker where subscribers can get information on funding from more than 1,000 sources.

The Community NI team hopes to see the site content grow quickly as voluntary and community organisations submit information and comments. Over the coming months, new functions will be introduced including ecommerce and online discussions.

MORE INFORMATION

Contact NICVA's ICT Outreach Officer Brendan Kane 028 9087 7777.