Community development projects nationwide like the pioneering one in Ringsend Dublin, call for the government to give them the recognition they deserve and the funding they require.
The report 'Rekindling the Fire', launched on 6 February 2007 is written by written by representatives from 65 Community Development Projects (CPDs) in the Eastern Region Network. The report examines 36 CPDs to demonstrate their range of activities, impacts and challenges. The report calls for the government to inject more money into self-help groups in socially excluded neighbourhoods.
One of the Eastern Region Network's pioneering groups was established in Ringsend, an area in Dublin with higher-than-average unemployment. It was here the first affordable houses in the Republic of Ireland were built and they were the brainchild of a Community Development Project (CPD). In 1992 the Ringsend Action Project began helping local families remain in the area and ended up inspiring the community to build 120 affordable homes.
Now in Ringsend the CDP organises an after school programme with the aim of fostering a more positive attitude towards schooling. Four days a week during term time , 40 children remain at school until 5 pm for supervised activities such as drama and art, as well as doing reading and homework. Teacher Amy Bartlet sees this as an opportunity for parents to go to work, safe in the knowledge that,
When they've picked them up at 5 o’ clock, the children have had their homework done, their reading has been done, they've been fed, they've been looked after.
Three quarters of the cost of the CPD comes from government , but locals have to raise 20,000 euro a year to keep it viable. Joe Grennell of the Eastern Region CDP Network believes these projects should be well resourced,
The government is looking toward local people to find solutions to social disadvantage within their own communities and we believe that if people are prepared to go and do this, they should be resourced and resourced handsomely to do this work.
An RTÉ News report broadcast on 10 February 2007. The reporter is Joe Little.
