Short Programmes:
Short training programmes, providing vital skills and knowledge to engage and explore issues identified locally as important for the sustainable development of the community. CONCENSUS has supported an array of short programmes in the past twelve months, engaging with an array of activities and issues. These include: film making, drama, health and fitness, human rights, shared and common history, essential skills, citizenship, equality issues, youth issues, women’s issues, environmental issues, crafts, social networking and essential skills.
Accredited Programmes:
The CONCENSUS Initiative offers accreditation for project based learning, addressing the identified needs of a local community as a sustainable community. Recognised accreditation will be available through the CONCENSUS initiative, but participating organisations might want to identify other accreditation to address the identified need. Where it is practicable, the project will also support this. A number of groups have progressed to take part in accredited training programmes which enhance their capacity to support the sustainability of their communities and 109 learners have achieved accreditation to date. These include a group attached to the REACH across group in Derry which has undertaken citizenship training at OCN levels 1 and 2.
CONCENSUS recently attained 5 CAT points from the department of Life Long Learning at Queens University for its own accredited programme. Several groups have progressed through this accreditation. The accreditation is project based with groups undertaking projects on subjects as diverse as the shared history of the Spanish Civil War in East Belfast, the challenges facing young people living in Armagh deprived areas of Armagh, and a Letterkenny group exploring the employability of a group of local people who are 45+ and have been made unemployed by the downturn.
Local Community Lead Projects:
Many groups undertaking the CONCENSUS Initiative might wish to make a local community lead project, the focus of their participation. This is expected and encouraged. The challenge is to identify a need and refine a solution which is practicable Notable examples include: support for the establishment of a youth Café in Portaferry, County Down, a drama production by the Alley Theatre group in Strabane, the production of a resource supporting the integration of support for the development and launch of the Omagh Time Bank project initiative, the production of an information resource focusing in the issue of domestic abuse against women in the work place with the ICTU.
Leadership Programmes:
The CONCENSUS initiative is keen to support the development of leaders and the skills and knowledge of leaders at all levels. The programme therefore offers leadership skills for those with the interest and the potential to promote the sustainability and to represent their communities in a variety of settings and on issues relevant to them. Leaders may be nominated or they may nominate themselves.
Leadership activities might include: supervising or chaperoning groups on visits here or abroad, contributing to local or regional government consultations, participating in development activities for local provision, representing their interest group on a committee, or other activities- yet to be identified. Leaders may develop their skills with the programme through this participation.
Networking Forums:
The project provides the opportunity groups to meet to share their experiences of addressing a local need or interest based need. This supports the opportunity for networking between local groups on a regional basis, the formation of new relationships and partnerships, and for consciousness raising activity for project participants, who might previously be unaware that their participation and the sustainability of their community affects a wider context. Forums supported this year include a cross border networking forum with the Cavan Community Workers Forum of Cavan County Council, to promote exchange between community organisations in Fermanagh and Cavan, an Evaluation Forum reflecting on a visit to
Bilbao in the Basque region of Northern Spain and to look at the lessons and opportunities it represents. Women from trade union and local community groups engaging in activity to develop a programme which addressed Women into politics and Women into Public Life.
Visits
Visits may have a community relations focus, provide a shared experience, they may be to sites which represent a focus for shared history, they may be for the purposes of exploring best practice from elsewhere, or they may serve another purpose.
Visits (Domestic):
CONCENSUS makes broad provision for visits on the island of Ireland. Visits are intended to provide both an incentive to participate and a focus for project and learning activity. These may be residential, or they may merely be one day visits. A group from the Shankill Women’s Centre undertook a residential visit to Bushmills to reflect on their inquiry in to the impacts of the Second World War on the Shankill Road community and the legacy this had left. A group from the Letterkenny Congress Resource Centre took part in a cross border visit where they were hosted by the Transition Towns organisation in Omagh, County Tyrone with a view to sharing experiences and approaches to common community sustainability issues.
On residential with a film crew, the collecting and recording of presentations and collective memory from a diverse group of joint veterans on a series of focused themes including: Human Experiences and Stories, History, Nationalism and Identity, Politics and Patriotism, Wars and Conflicts, and Hopes and Visions for the future.
Visits (Overseas):
The project also makes some provision for overseas visits. These are a scarce resource and therefore are arranged only to answer the most pervasive and pressing needs, identified by the rigorous inquiry of groups into their own communities. In keeping with the broad objective of the initiative and in order to wring the optimum benefit, groups taking part in visits overseas will usually be cross community and where possible cross border.
Overseas visits in this year are focused on the Basque region of Northern Spain and are drawn from 30 people drawn from 4 groups associated with political ex prisoners and ex combatants from East Belfast, Short Strand, Markets and Donegal Pass. These groups are undertaking the accredited training programme on the Spanish Civil War. In the unique way by the Shared/Common History Group. Their visits followed the initial trip undertaken by 30 people drawn from organisations who have an association with BURC and 20 from the Shared Common History Group who developed the content of the first Spanish Civil war course ran pre-Christmas 2009 and in the New Year of 2010. The focus on the Basque Region over several visits enabled successive groups to participate in the refinement of this experience for others coming after them.
In May of 2010 CONCENSUS sent a delegation to Norway to exchange experience and share best practice on the integration of migrants from the EU and beyond. Through the sharing of experience between these groups, the project produced a learner led programme designed to build capacity with trainers and educators to support the integration of migrant workers. In June we hosted a return visit to pool knowledge and reflect on what had been learned.
In June 2010 an Armagh group of 12 young people made a return visit to the neighbourhoods of the Sheffield youth, to the Wakefield miners and Chilean association with the belief that a better understanding of other’s situations allows a deeper reflection on our own. The film the young people make on their experiences and aspirations will be shown to local decision and policy makers to provoke discussion, debate and future action.
