NI peace projects awarded €10m funding from Dublin

The Irish government has announced new funding worth almost €10m (£8.54m) to support peace and reconciliation work in Northern Ireland.

The money will go to 154 organisations including St Peter's Immaculata Youth Centre in Belfast, R City Youth in Londonderry, Women's Aid groups and the Wave Trauma Centre.

Ireland's foreign affairs minister Helen McEntee said the funding awarded placed particular focus on projects working to tackle violence against women and girls.

"I believe that we must support women affected by abuse if we are to see stronger cohesion in Northern Ireland," McEntee said.

"I have ensured that this new strategy includes specific provisions for these types of projects, along with ones that promote the inclusion and development of women in civic society."

Groups awarded funding include Clanrye Group who run a violence against women and girls learning programme, the Fall's Women Centre for their No Woman Left Behind project and the Playhouse in Derry, where an arts project addressing rising levels of violence against women and girls is to be developed.

Cathedral Youth Club in Derry have been awarded €132,468 over three years.

Jeanette Warke, who manages the organisation, said she was "jumping about the office, just over the moon" when she found out they were receiving the funding.

"We're so excited at receiving the award and you know it was a lot of work to get there but as I say we're delighted."

She added that the money will allow them to employ staff to work with the young people and continue their programmes.

"Many of the young people are in need of special care and they feel isolated where the area in which we work and deliver our programmes is situated right on an interface and it can be prone to sectarian attacks quite often," Warke said.

"So it's important that the workers that we're bringing in through this money will be able to more or less pay good relations with young Catholics on the other side of the interface, which has started anyway, but to continue doing that good work."

Warke added that they also encourage young people "who feel isolated" to partake in the club's sports and programmes, and "give back to the community".

Money has also been awarded to groups working with young people and in the arts.

McEntee met with some of the organisations awarded funding in Dublin on Tuesday.

That included, she said, some of the groups who were on the ground during disorder in Belfast last month "working directly to reduce tensions, keeping young people from harm and supporting migrant families who had been displaced due to the unrest."

She said the Reconciliation Fund money, to be allocated over three years, is "an investment in those organisations and in the people who work every day to build trust, strengthen relationships and create a more peaceful and shared future across Northern Ireland".

Some of the organisations to have been awarded funding include:

• €474,000 over three years for the Integrated Education Fund (IEF)
• €101,400 over three years for Omagh Support and Self Help Group
• €107,400 over three years for Kilcooley Women's Centre
• €24,962 for Belfast and Lisburn Women's Aid
• €29,000 for FactCheckNI
• €22,120 for Cliftonville Community Regeneration Forum

In a statement, FactCheckNI said the funding will enable them to continue to help "people navigate an increasingly complex information environment with confidence".

"By empowering people to critically assess the information they encounter, our work supports informed participation in democratic processes, strengthens community resilience and contributes to more constructive public debate.

"We see this as an investment not only in trusted information, but in stronger communities and a healthier democratic society".

An IEF spokesperson said it will help them and the Council for Integrated Education to continue to "support the growth and development of integrated education across Northern Ireland".

"Integrated schools intentionally bring together children, staff and governors from all religious and cultural traditions within a single school community, where every day pupils can learn with, from and about each other."

Established in 1982, the Reconciliation Fund has provided more than €67m (£57.2m) to over 3,200 projects in Northern Ireland.