Keys to London for community worker

COMMUNITY worker Jeanette Warke is to be granted the Freedom of the City of London later this year.

Mrs Warke was asked by The Honourable The Irish Society if the Society could nominate her for the award back in March, and the following month the dedicated youth and community worker was notified that the nomination had been accepted by the Court of Common Council and in due course she would be admitted to the Freedom of the City of London.

The ceremony will take place in the Chamberlain’s Court Room in the Guildhall in London, off Basinghall Street, and as part of the ceremony Jeanette will be asked to read aloud the ‘Declaration of a Freeman’ and sign the ‘Register of Freemen’.

Nominating Mrs Warke for the accolade, the Deputy Governor, John Absalom, and the Northern Ireland Representative, Edward Montgomery said the Society during it’s last visit to the city of Londonderry had been “in awe” of what she had been able to achieve in terms of producing literature, postcards, notebooks, DVDs, launching a ‘Footsteps Through the Fountain’ walking tour guide, publishing the local history book ‘Past the Jail and Down Behind The Fountain’, and building and opening the new Bastion Plots for young and old to enjoy nature.

“Whilst so many initiatives have attracted Northern Ireland Youth Awards, and rightly so, we would also like to celebrate your own personal commitment to The Fountain community,” they said.

Reflecting on the award, Jeanette said she expected to travel to London in September or October to receive it, and when she was initially contacted about it, and given a booklet on receiving the Freedom, she had been “gobsmacked”.

“To tell you the truth at first I was not sure what it meant, and after reading the booklet I knew then that it was quite an important award and I was chuffed to bits to receive the nomination.

“Then when I learned the nomination was successful and I was going to receive the award I was gobsmacked. They said they were nominating me as a celebration of my personal commitment to The Fountain community.

“When you get the MBE you think that it’s the end of it and you don’t expect people to be bothered any more. When you work in the community you don’t look for awards because you do it for the passion of it. I have been working with young people for 39 years and we are really looking forward to our 40th anniversary next year in 2012 at the Cathedral Youth Club. Those celebrations will run nicely into 2013 and the UK City of Culture celebrations, and we think it is just so fitting that this should all be happening at the same time.

“When we started in 1972 it was a minefield, with bombings and shootings and everything else that was going on in the city. It was not a very pleasant time, but I now have a lot of satisfaction from working in the city, and I have gained a lot of experience too,” she said.

“I want to thank The Honourable The Irish Society who have always been so supportive of this community, helping us with the Community House and supporting the Irish History group that I set up, and for the support they have shown the Cathedral Youth Club. It is lovely that they see and support the work that you do and appreciate what you are trying to achieve, indeed, the last time they came to visit they gave us a cheque to help us with the cost of replacing the boiler in the Community House. This place has been great for the young people of the area, and we have such a fantastic group of people here in The Fountain.

“It is all very well me putting projects in place but it is the young people and other groups in The Fountain and community that run them and make them the success, and it is down to them for their support that this place is so successful. In fact, this is the most successful year yet for the Cathedral youth Club, which has become a really vibrant club for all who use it, and this year our summer scheme has been the biggest we have ever had.

“I put this success down to the dedicated staff that we have here, and the fact that we put everybody’s ideas into the mixing bowl, which is how we come up with so many fantastic ideas for projects,” she said.