Centre Manager of Atlas Women's Centre, Gay Sherry-Bingham, shares the team's joy at receiving £10K grant

Reducing isolation and helping people affected by the rising costs of living is one of the key focuses of Atlas Women’s Centre in Lisburn, which has been awarded a £10,000 grant to continue to run educational workshops for vulnerable women in the community.

The exciting announcement comes as the National Lottery funding has been awarded to groups in Lisburn and further afield to ‘strengthen communities’.

It is part of a Northern Ireland wide announcement of nearly £10m in funding with over 300 grants going to every council area across Northern Ireland.

“We are absolutely delighted to receive £10,000 from the National Lottery,” Gay Sherry-Bingham, Centre Manager, enthuses to the Ulster Star.

"When you talk to women, one of the main things they say is they want to get out of the house and have a chat and learn new things.

"It helps to keep the mind active and everybody learns new tips and tricks about how to declutter the mind, how to not overthink.

“There is a huge variety of activities on offer at Atlas Women’s Centre, with a lot of those activities running over the summer to be funded, which is great.”

Atlas Women’s Centre is attended by a diverse age range of women. Indeed, as Gay explains, this is a large part of its appeal:

“Just this morning there were women coming into the centre and their ages ranged from in their 20’s to over 80’s,” Gay says.

"The women love the inter-generational approach, they learn from each other, they listen and they tell us it is so important that our classes have that mix of ages.”

Significantly, Atlas Women’s Centre has also tackled one common potential issue which can cause a barrier to women seeking educational courses, counselling and support services - childcare.

“Thankfully our creche services are here which actually enable women to come to the centre, because many wouldn’t be able to otherwise, Gay says.

"So many women who have completed the Community Health and Happiness programmes have moved on and got accredited courses at college and gone on to study at Queen’s University, Belfast and started employment. So the creche really is an extremely important service within the centre.”

The creche is open to all women attending one of the workshops.

"We feel the creche is a programme which helps strengthen the family unit,” Gay explains.

“So while mummy is learning and developing and socialising in one room, the child is doing the same in the other room which is absolutely brilliant.

"So there is social interaction, learning and development for the children too."

As an example of some of the classes, as part of the Awards for All funding, Atlas Women’s Centre offers a beginner’s crocheting class.

In light of the cost of living crisis, Gay explains this has proven invaluable for its members, who come away with the knowledge of how to make their own gifts.

"With hardship at the moment it is all about making your own gifts and some of our young mums are crocheting gifts to give to their children’s teachers, so it really does help.

"Through the Awards for All we’re also going to start making our own healthy cleaning products, so again this helps build skills such as communication, confidence, mental health and helps with the tightening of the purse strings in a practical way.

“We often hear women saying how much the centre helps them as it is the only place they actually speak to people which helps with their mental health, which is so important for us.”

"A lot of people coming to the programmes have been referred by their GP, community psychiatric nurse or local mental health team. Thankfully, we all work together in Lisburn and we get a lot of referrals from other organisations as well as self-referrals.

"But to attend a class all you have to do is ring us ahead of time.

"We understand it is extremely difficult for people to actually walk in through the door and ask for help, or even to ring and ask for help.

"We understand this and ensure we are sensitive to that.”

It is hoped Atlas can help people’s mental health just by getting out of the house:

"For people that are feeling down but do not have the confidence to talk to people, they might join a class and still feel part of something but they do not need to talk if they do not want to.

“Atlas Women’s Centre exists to improve mental health, happiness and reduce feelings of isolation and loneliness.”

Indeed, Gay encourages women to come along and sit in the cafe even if they are not attending one of the classes:

“Anybody walking past is welcome to come in and sit in the cafe,” Gay explains.

"Some of our participants who don’t need to go into classes now do this just to get out of the house. They’ll bring along their crochet and someone at the other table may be sitting there making their own cushions for example, and they end up talking away to each other over a hot cuppa.”

Paul Sweeney, NI Chair of The National Lottery Community Fund said: “We fund projects that matter to communities, and I’m delighted to see such a wide range of groups awarded, each making such a difference across Northern Ireland."

Atlas Women’s Centre is based on 7 Bachelors Walk, Lisburn. The cafe is open to the public from 9am – 2pm Monday to Friday.

Atlas Women’s Centre is holding their next Community Craft Sale on Saturday 29 July from 11am until 3pm at Atlas Women’s Centre.

For those interested in attending a class, contact: 028 92605806.

To find out more information visit: http://www.atlaswomenscentre.co.uk