Funding local peacebuilding at grassroots – CRC Core Fund launch 2021-22

The Community Relations Council (CRC) has funded 29 local peacebuilding groups through its 2021-22 Core Funding Scheme. This represents an investment of over £1.2 million aimed at a grassroots level with groups dedicated to good community relations across Northern Ireland.  The Core Funding Scheme provides support for organisations which are considered of strategic importance in promoting community relations work across the entire region.

The Core Funding Scheme is dedicated to promoting community relations work across Northern Ireland.

Rural Community Network is delighted to have been awarded this grant.

At the core of RCN’s work is an ambition to work with local groups to support them to address the legacy of the past and move them towards a more shared and peaceful future.

Kate Clifford, RCN Director, said:

“RCN is delighted to receive a 2-year investment in its Rural Peacebuilding and Good Relations programme from Community Relations Council. As a regional body with a deep reach into rural communities we have worked hard to consolidate our relationship with our existing membership and to expand our reach to areas where peacebuilding and good relations work has been less invested in. We are hugely excited by this new investment which will see us explore difficult conversations, shared and contested histories, the formation of Northern Ireland, partition, and the integration of new people into our communities. Our ambition is to build both tolerance and understanding of difference and to create space for honest conversations.

This programme of work in the coming two years will also see us work alongside practitioners in the field ensuring their voices are articulated to decision makers, and that they feel supported in roles that can often be isolating by virtue of being both rural and challenging.”

Other recipients include Holywell Trust, Community Relations Forum and Building Communities Resource Centre.