Communique Issue 1 - 2013

communiqué (1) Audited Accounts 2012

Ed took part in a EU Presidency Conference about the dimensions of family vulnerability - the causes, the current situation and what can be done.

Gillian worked to close off the 2012 accounts. She comments: “ it’s interesting to look back the different streams of funding that were awarded to Blue Drum in that time in 2012!”

(iv) Social Inclusion Forum Gillian took part in this forum sharing our experience with FRCs and families experiencing poverty and social exclusion. Taking part was helpful to develop a child and family perspective for the Europe 2020 Strategy.

-Family Support Agency €68,555 -The Community Foundation €1,300 -The Arts Council €1,000 -Liverpool Study Visit Subs €460 -Dublin City Council €400 -Glenisk Donations €250 -European Union €36,000 -Give EUR Hope €3,500 -Dutch Embassy €385

City (Re)Searchers 2013 Sneem, Co.Kerry

(3) Happy Parent (HP)

(2) Seminars / Meetings

After the 2012 evaluation of the HP programme, it now operates as a 4 part programme which includes a selfmanaged element. The programme emphasises non-issue based creative communication between adult and child, and a friendly open peer-support environment for parents/carers.

(i) Economic, Social and Cultural Rights Eleanor went to this seminar and advocated for a richer view of cultural rights. The panel agreed they had not looked at cultural rights from a production perspective before. She also nominated Blue Drum for future advocacy work in this regard.

An information leaflet and Poster for use by FRCs was designed and disseminated, as well as a Brochure and information leaflet aimed at other organisations who also work with parents. In addition an Happy Parent Facebook page and Pinterest page has

(ii) Irish Youth Foundation Niall McLoughlin and Sabina Cotter of IYF welcomed Ed’s exchange about community arts work with children. (iii) Vulnerable Families Conference

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communiqué been set up to enable accessibility to the work and to inspire!

Frances Fitzgerald. The Proposal is a well-conceived, structured and modest proposal in development for over a year. At the heart of the programme is an urgent need to address what is a systemic inequality with regard to poorer family’s access to, and participation in the arts in Ireland.

We welcome Vivienne Byrne and Lisa Crowne as two new Arts Facilitators to the HP team. Barry Cullen also continues to evaluate the programme and planning meetings were held.

Twenty-two FRCs expressed an interest and workshops take place in 9 centres:      

Killinarden, Dublin.

Fatima Mansions, Dublin.

Sneem, South West Kerry.

Trim FRC, Co. Meath.

Connect FRC, Co. Louth.

Caha Centre, Adrigole, Cork.

(5) City Researchers Community Culture Proposal is a result of research from the City (Re)Searchers Project where we are asking families and communities what makes culture important and valued? We completed the Cork and Belfast modules, which went really well in terms of engaging communities. Some idea for cross border programmes focused on FRCs emerged. Niall Crowley and the researchers developed a full day Public Deliberation. This is what we heard!

Day 1 - Belfast Day 2 - Belfast

Killeshandra, Co Cavan Enquires are also coming in from other non-FRC community organisations e.g.

New Life Centre in Darndale.

(4) Community Culture In advance of the Dáil Committee on Arts and Disadvantage report (due Summer 2013) we were invited by Minister Deenihan to develop a Community Culture proposal. He agreed to schedule a joint meeting with his ministerial colleague, Minister

The researchers travel to Kaunas for the final four-day inquiry on 24-27 June, 2013. This event is supported by

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communiqué Culture Ireland’s EU Presidency Programme.

in the area of co-operative tools (more below). Leargas have given us the goahead to offer a training course in Lithuania next October 2013. We chose Lithuania because its hosts the EU Presidency and Irish participants are funded for overseas courses only.

(6) Letter from Gordon Jeyes Gordon Jeyes, CEO Designate of the new Agency wrote to Blue Drum recently proffering the merits of an arts initiative in the context of child and family support and a specific idea to develop enterprising skills programme. We will follow-up with Gordon and begin exploring community enterprise (more below).

(8) Grundtvig Ed and Eleanor took part in a preparatory visit to prepare a project with artway of thinking, a Venetian collective. We planned and prepared the work required to deliver the Inservice Training which is scheduled for October 2013 and which is now on the Europa training database website. Also discussed was an application for an EU Grundtvig Learning Partnership (9) Community Arts Enterprise and Entrepreneurship One of the outcomes of both the letter from Gordon Jeyes and Grundtvig visit is our intention to organise Untapped Capital an exchange workshop and seminar focused on community arts enterprise. We want to explore how to ‘bank’ the gifts, skills and capacities of young people and communities. We applied to the Community Foundation Ulster Bank to help us in this regard.

Fiona Woods I Have Doubts

(7) Pedagogy of Community and Cultural Rights - 20:20 Vision Another direct result of the City (Re)Searches project was the need for greater cooperation between independent bubbles of activity.

Training is a strategy to get FRCs working more cooperatively in community arts. A group of facilitators from Italy were suggested as specialists

Issue 1 / April 2013

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