Protestant groups respond to new project

It was known that capacity building was badly needed in a number of areas in the region - the Protestant community’s feeling of isolation and alienation in Londonderry is well-documented in recent years - but the staff and leaders within the Gateway to Protestant Participation project have been taken aback at the number of groups coming forward for help.

The GPP project - being led by the YMCA based at Drumahoe - came about after an analysis of Peace I and Peace II programmes, when it was found that ethnic communities and the Protestant communities had failed to access any significant percentage of the funding. Under Peace III there was a priority set aside, and funding made available to address this issue - a budget of 0.5m to do capacity building work in Protestant areas.

The YMCA was successful in bidding for this funding. Its bid included bringing along four strategic partners - St Columb’s Park House in the city, The Villages Together in the Strabane Council area, Derry and Raphoe Action in the Omagh area, and Derry-Tyrone and Donegal Action, in the Donegal area. Three outreach workers were appointed - Julia Kee for Londonderry and Strabane, Seana Hume for Donegal and part of Strabane, and Maureen McNair for Omagh and part of Strabane.

Over 600 people were engaged with, and 60 groups across the relevant areas of the four counties have expressed an interest in participating in the capacity building programmes; this level of engagement is seen as demonstrating the potential impact that the GPP programmes will have on the Protestant community.

The GPP team have also been instrumental in supporting Protestant groups to establish links with other statutory organisations and community groups.

Soon they will be selecting groups to come onto a capacity building programme and starting to roll out a programme of training for the community and voluntary sector.

General Secretary of the YMCA in Drumahoe, William Lamrock said: “In the past three months they have engaged with over 600 groups and individuals and have identified 60 groups across that area that would require support in developing their organisation and infrastructure. We will shortly see that cut to 30 because of available money. Each worker will have ten groups that they will take forward, developing strategic plans for each of these groups. We will be able to access some financial support for projects they are working on and are essential to them being robust enough to take the case forward.”

The finance is provided by the European Regional Development Fund: “We are delighted that they have recognised the need and are supportive.”

The groups in need, who cannot be supported by ways of securing funding, will not be forgotten, as other types of support will still be available to them.

The number of organisations that have been identified has delighted Mr Lamrock as all of them exist to try to support local communities, but many of them require major support work to reorganise themselves and plan for the future.

“Hopefully in this programme, the training we are doing will make the job a whole lot easier,” said Mr Lamrock. “If everyone is acting to a plan on where we want to be in three years’ time, we can make this work. We are not putting in this effort just to fail. This is a unique model. The community and voluntary sector are leading this process supported by the councils. This has brought a real dynamic to it. The strategic groups have credibility and can pick up the issues that need to be addressed. If this was led by statutory organisations, it would become a 9-5 job and a lot of the groups we are addressing don’t work in this time frame.

“The work has been heavier than expected. There are 30 groups that are going to get financial support in doing a project and there are groups that are not interested in money - all they want is training to make the organisation better oiled, and that’s brought in more work than we expected. We have also had a great deal of interest and support from some of the other funding bodies, for example the Rural Development Fund, we have been very successful in getting organisations from the Protestant community into the slipstream of funding.

“We have also been very successful in working with Ilex, in getting Protestant organisations to commit to engage with their approach. The credibility we bring has enabled some things to open up for them (Ilex).”

Of the 0.5m, 450,000 is going to the GPP project, leaving 50,000.

“What we have now secured from the North West Cluster Board is the rationale to carry out research. We held a meeting in the Sollus Centre and we invited groups to talk about what the legacy of the GPP should be and we felt the best way was to carry out research. This is a massive piece of social action. The research will run alongside that social action - and operate outside of it as well - but at the end of it, it will tell us the issues and what recomendations needs to be made.”

The end of the current funding for the GPP project may not mark the end altogether, such has been its success. And there may even be a knock-on effect for other areas.

“There’s another tranche of peace money coming in 2011/2012. This project to date has been so successful in engaging with a lot of groups and that’s been recognised. There’s slippage money of 100,000 on other projects and the NW Peace 3 Cluster Board is exploring the possibility of this project being rolled out to all communities. I think its right that everybody should get support: there are small pockets of the Roman Catholic community where there hasn’t been the development of their communities that I would previously have imagined.

“I hope it does happen and if it does, the YMCA will be there to provide whatever support we can,” concluded Mr Lamrock.