Reprieve for Confederation
Armagh's largest community network, which was facing closure after ten years'
work, has secured extra funding for one year. The Department for Social
Development has made a special one-off award to Armagh Confederation of
Voluntary Groups, in recognition of the value of its contribution to community
development across the city and district. The Confederation's management
committee is now looking urgently at ways of using the one-year breathing space
to develop new ways of funding its work.
Based in College Street,
the Confederation was founded in 1998 by 16 local organisations, and within a
few years grew to around 200 member groups, covering every town, village and
hamlet in the Council area. This made it one of the largest community networks
in Northern Ireland. The Confederation has provided its members with a wide
range of services, from advice on constitutions and charitable status, through
to photocopying and website development. It has also served as the first point
of contact between many public-sector bodies and the local community and
voluntary sector, and this key role helped to persuade the Department that it
could not be allowed to go under. It directly employs three staff and has been
involved in the creation of many other community-sector jobs, having helped its
members secure hundreds of thousands of pounds' worth of funding from
governmental, European, Lottery, charitable and private sources.
“Ironically, given our success in winning funds for our member groups, we
missed out in our own application for renewed core funding a year ago”, said
Confederation chair Ciarán Ó Maoláin. “Like many community networks across
Northern Ireland, we relied heavily on European 'peace programme' funds. The
consolidation of the peace, and EU enlargement, have reduced Europe's interest
and investment in this region, but we expected to secure three more years from a
transitional programme put in place by the Department for Social Development.
Armagh lost out to neighbouring Council areas, but were given special funding
last year.”
The Confederation's voluntary management committee believed that this funding
would last for the full three years, but it became clear some weeks ago that the
Department had other plans. Faced with the likelihood that it would not have the
means to pay its staff, the committee began to plan for closure. However, a
strong lobbying campaign, supported by community groups and a number of elected
representatives, persuaded the DSD to throw the organisation a lifeline.
“We know that this will be a challenging year for us”, said Mr Ó
Maoláin. “We need to find new ways of paying for the core services we provide,
so we have to look at generating a much higher proportion of our income from
sources other than the DSD. We need significant and sustained financial support
from our better-off member groups, and from the public-sector bodies that
benefit from our services. Armagh Council, which down the years has made
extensive use of the Confederation, now needs to get serious about putting the
community's money back into the community. We also look to the generosity of the
local business sector and individual donors – the Confederation is something
that Armagh people should be proud of, and the development and empowerment of
local communities directly benefits the local economy.” He added that the
network would shortly organise a meeting of its members to consider the way
forward, and asked the Gazette to stress the gratitude of the Confederation's
staff and management to all those who spoke out on its behalf. “We especially
appreciate the sympathetic coverage in the Gazette, which helped to save three
local jobs.”
