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Inishowen Women's
group celebrates €400,000 windfall
08.07.08
INISHOWEN Women’s
Information Network (IWIN) is celebrating a grants
windfall totalling more than €400,000 to further its
work in cross-border reconciliation.
The group recently received word of a £250,000stg
grant from the International Fund for Ireland and
only yesterday learned of a €90,000 allocation from
the Department of Foreign Affairs' Reconciliation
Fund.
Both allocations are to help the Carndonagh-based
network undertake a three-year project in
association with the Mid-Ulster Women's Network in
Derry.
The aim of the project is to conduct a survey of 90
women and develop their capacity to work within
their own communities with people from different
traditions.
Network co-ordinator Jacqui Rooney said the group
was delighted with the funding.
"We are absolutely delighted that our project was
chosen for the funding," she said.
She explained that the funding was awarded following
the success of their ongoing pilot project involving
20 women in Inishowen and Mid-Ulster.
"As part of this three-year project, we will be
looking at women's experience of the Troubles. It
will include their own personal experiences such as
remembering the checkpoints Derry and Strabane or
maybe them still having a fear of driving into parts
of the North with their Donegal-registered cars,"
she said. The 90 participants will be chosen from
areas such as Inishowen, mid-Ulster, Derry, Lifford
and Raphoe.
Ms. Rooney said the programme will run until 2011
and the group will advertise in the coming weeks for
participants. Women will not receive a participation
allowance but will receive allowances for childcare
and/or travel, she explained.
Other beneficiaries of the Department of Foreign
Affairs' latest allocation announced yesterday
included St. Catherine’s Marching Band, Killybegs,
€20,000; Creggan Youth Drop-In, Derry, €25,000 and
the Pat Finucane Centre for Human Rights and Social
Change, Derry, €25,000.
Foreign Affairs Minister Micheál Martin said the
funding was designed to help the ongoing work of
community-based groups who further the progress made
in the peace process in recent years.
"These groups are giving young people the necessary
skills to engage in reconciliation, while
simultaneously developing links between communities
across these islands," he said. |
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