Community

This year's Council of the Year Award went to South Dublin County Council, while Helen O’Donnell from Limerick was named as Community Volunteer of the Year. We have all the award winners here!

You’ve been probably been to a few lame launches where the highlight is a Powerpoint presentation. They do it differently in south Dublin. On March 7, amidst a blaze of colour, music and dance, Southside Partnership, which operates in the Dún Laoghaire–Rathdown area, launched its new 5-year Strategic Plan titled ‘Strengthening Foundations, Expanding Possibilities’.

A new report called ‘The Reception Gap’ raises concerns for people in living in state-provided emergency accommodation, giving a voice to residents about the conditions and lack of oversight.

In one-to-one interviews, we asked six people active in civil society for their personal views on: How best can small local civil society groups play a part in opposing the genocide? While the interviews and a follow-up survey were conducted prior to a "peace" agreement, the Israeli state's genocide against Palestine and its people continues on regardless in 2026.

"Bio-regioning" is the new in-thing to know all about, but what a maddening name.

Working as a community development worker with Galway Rural Development has been life-changing, ex-prisoner Damien Quinn told a recent ‘In Our Words’ event in Athlone. The celebratory occasion was held to showcase the value of the Social Inclusion and Community Activation Programme for which Damien works. Having used his three years in prison to better educate himself, he found that the work involved in turning his life around was not over at all when he came out. Due to his criminal record, he was locked out of the type of community development roles he sought. That was the case until he was finally given a break.

Potential deep within people will be brought out with the right opportunities and support. That was the message from Sabrina Whelan at a recent conference on the Social Inclusion and Community Activation Programme (SICAP). Now a community engagement worker with the County Kildare LEADER Partnership Sabrina says that how she ended up there shows the value of SICAP and of nourishing people's possibilities.

Helping Irish Hosts, a group formed by Irish volunteers to support war refugees displaced in the early months of Russia’s full-scale attack on Ukraine, has criticised the level of difficulty it faced in getting charitable status. In the end it actually gave up on the process, which it criticised for being unwieldy, unrealistic and even threatening.