‘Crafts with Love’ to hold open day next week

The weekly age range is exclusively adult, although we occasionally incorporate children in selective programmes, by special arrangement with local schools. Crafts with Love seek to provide an active crafting environment for adults of all ages including the elderly and those with marginal disabilities.

The volunteers meet weekly at the Coleraine West Community Centre in the Heights area of Coleraine to engage in traditional and modern crafting.

The group aims to provide a framework for cross-community relations, social interaction and networking, while developing arts and crafts based projects within an environment of cultural diversity.

At the community centre various craft activities run concurrently each week. They range from quilting to ceramics, jewellery-making, paper-craft, crochet, knitting, flower-arranging and painting. These workshops are open to everyone, including non members.

Crafts with Love volunteers develop skills and work together to achieve worthwhile goals, and build community bridges. In this way networks of communication are established, and trust and co-operation are evidenced between divided communities in our local setting.

We also seek to promote a model of good practice for community relations work. We develop our members through accredited and non-accredited training in crafts, and in other related fields.

We employ external tutors and professionals from the public /health sectors to promote quality training. Our volunteers have pre-set goals, and we aim to give them ownership of their projects.

In this way they are very actively involved and committed. In turn our volunteers set up annual self-directed strategies to support children’s charities.

You are invited to attend our Open Day and Launch of On-Line Shop at Coleraine West Community Centre,

Monday 19 September 2011, 2.15 – 4.30pm.

Special Guest: Angela Mulholland, Community Outreach Officer, Ballymoney Community Resource Centre.

Usual Craft Workshops will be in progress. Light refreshments will be provided

Everyone welcomer.

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