Creative approaches to health issues BLUE Drum, the Arts Specialist Support Agency, has been investigating creative community development approaches to health issues. This has been done through: • Three local arts-based projects with Ballyphehane/Togher CDP, South West Wexford CDP and Pavee Point (the Traveller-focused Specialist Support Agency). • Research into wider examples of appropriate community based work in Britain and Ireland. • A national seminar held in June 2005. The work was carried out as part of the Combat Poverty Agency's 'Building Healthy Communities' scheme. In November and into early December, Blue Drum held a series of regional workshops where participants: • Heard the experiences and learning from this work to date; • Added their own experience to the pot; • Took part in a practical creative workshop; The workshops included community development, health and community arts practitioners and were held in Cork, Galway, Tralee and Letterkenny, all for free. Blue Drum workers networked with the participants and are considering options for future developments. For more information contact Gillian Keogan, Blue Drum. Tel. 01-877-1446. E-mail: info@bluedrum.ie
Projects won publicity (but no cash!) IN September, two CDPs slogged it out with other Dublin community groups on NewsTalk 106 to see who could attract the most text-votes from the public and win prizes of €10,000. Mountwood/Fitzgerald Park CDP and the North Wall Women’s Centre CDP were among the hopeful groups who took part. The ‘Local Heroes’ competition - while cruel on the losing entrants - was good publicity nonetheless for all concerned. This was one of the attractions to entering, said Mountwood/Fitzgerald Park CDP co-ordinator, Marion White. Newstalk 106 donated the revenue from the text-votes received for each organisation to that organisation and sponsored the four €10,000 prizes.
Campaign against violence against women
Women’s Aid march on Dáil WOMEN'S Aid activists marched on the Dáil on November 25th denouncing the Government for mostly ignoring the plight of women abused in the home. The action took place on the UN's International Day Against Violence Against Women, the first day in the global 16 Days of Action Against Violence Against Women. The protest outside the Dáil was to highlight the fact that hundreds of women (often with their children) are turned away from women's refuges because the Government have not provided the spaces they promised in the past. Only 60% of women who sought emergency refuge last year were accommodated. In people-numbers, of 2813 women who needed refuge, 1687 were accommodated; the remaining 1113 women had to go elsewhere or were left with nowhere to go. Women's Aid itself (one of the Community Development Programme's six Specialist
Support Agencies) does not have the resources it needs. Around 40% of the 20,000 calls to its helpline last year went unanswered. The agency wants to get the message out that one in five Irish women have suffered some form of domestic abuse. This year's publications to mark the campaign also acknowledges, for the first year, that 8% of the perpetrators of abuse of women are other women. However, men are responsible for 92% of the abuse and also for the most violent and oppressive types of abuse. Marriage remains the most common context for domestic violence. National Freephone Helpline Statistics from Womens Aid reveal the main types of abuse disclosed by callers: emotional (50%), physical (30%), sexual (9%), economic (11%). Many women call after experiencing multiple forms of abuse. More info: www.womensaid.ie Freephone: 1800-341-900.
No missing the banners in Ringsend CDPs are among the wide variety of community groups who took part in the '16 Days of Action Against Violence Against Women'. Here’s a flavour of what Dublin CDPs engaged in: • Ringsend Action Project CDP took on a community artist to work with a local group. They created a series of antiviolence banners and the banners went on display on prominent buildings in Ringsend and Irishtown. • St. Michael's Family Resource Centre (a CDP) held a seminar in late November, in conjunction with Inchicore Women's Outreach, to revisit community responses to domestic violence.
• Ballymun Men's Centre CDP held a big breakfast as part of the campaign. • Ronanstown CDP were involved with Clondalkin Domestic Violence Service in holding a Community Conference entitled 'Breaking the Silence on Domestic Violence'. • Speakers included Women's Aid, Northern Ireland Women's Aid Federation, SIPTU and An Garda Síochána. • The support agency, Pavee Point have their own 'Violence Against Women Programme' and for December they launched a new leaflet titled 'Challenging the myth of violence against women of minority ethnic groups in Ireland.'
Vagina Monologues - a community performance RINGSEND Action Project CDP facilitated the Ringsend & Irishtown Domestic Violence Working Group to stage a community performance of 'The Vagina Monologues' at the Mansion House, Dawson Street, Dublin 2, on December 6th. A group of 13 women who live or work in changing ireland
Ringsend & Irishtown, and range in age from 35 to 75, performed the play. "The Vagina Monologues" is a play by Eve Ensler that was developed through discussions with women in North America, Europe, Africa and Asia about their views and feelings about their own bodies and their
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experiences of violence. It is a powerful tool for raising awareness of issues pertaining to violence against women and it is intended that its performance encourages participants and audience to take action against domestic violence (against women and men) in all its forms.
world bank is owed $19.4 bn by the poorest countries