£1million funding invested in 'community capacity building'

Over £1million is being invested in ‘community capacity building’ in North Belfast, during the next two years, as part of an EU initiative called Urban II, aimed at fast tracking community development, it was announced today.

The North Belfast Partnership will deliver the funding across three programmes in North Belfast focusing on the promotion of social and economic regeneration. The community based projects - the first of its kind to receive EU funding in Northern Ireland - will seek to improve community transport, ICT literacy and youth services in the inner city area.

The initiatives will be delivered by six Community Empowerment Partnerships and forms part of an ambitious vision to transform North Belfast into a ‘vibrant and safe’ community. The funded initiatives will be showcased at a major event to be hosted at the Northern Ireland Council for Voluntary Action in North Belfast later this month.

“The European Union funding will help improve the overall living standards of those most affected by poverty within North Belfast,” says Murdo Murray, Chief Executive of North Belfast Partnership. “By working collaboratively with the government and across the community a sustained approach can be made to tackle deep rooted problems.”

The funding comes on the back of an audit in North Belfast which had identified barriers to employment and learning such as serious shortfalls in the provision of adequate transport networks, ICT resources and facilities for young people aged 5-25 who make up a quarter of North Belfast’s population.

A key architect of an influential report which provided a range of recommendations to government on tackling multiple deprivation in North Belfast, including the establishment of a network of Community Empowerment Partnerships, Rev Dr John Dunlop said: “This initiative from the North Belfast Partnership helps to overcome the long standing isolation of communities as well as conflict and suspicion between communities which in the past have wasted and weakened the potential for constructive change.”

The most recent statistics from the Northern Ireland Statistics Research Agency indicate that sixty per cent of the North Belfast parliamentary constituency population are living in the most deprived areas of Northern Ireland.

(JM/KMcA)