Empowerment

This week is International Men’s Health Week, and the Men’s Health Forum in Ireland (MHFI), in collaboration with nearly 100 partner organisations, has issued a challenge to men across the island of Ireland to become an 'Action Man' and to follow ten tips to improve their health and wellbeing.

A new report on school attendance among the Travelling community has revealed a slight increase in the number of pupils attending, and completing post-primary education.

Core social welfare rates must increase by €25 in Budget 2024, and the Government must commit to benchmarking social welfare rates to average weekly earnings if it is to have any impact on reducing poverty.

“There's definitely a question around women from ethnic minority communities’ experiences of the maternity services.” – Jenny Liston, Pavee Point A quarter of Roma women’s first contact with maternity services is when they arrive in labour at the hospital. Without translators available, patients and medics rely on Google Translate to communicate. We wouldn’t know about this if it wasn’t for the tremendous work being done with Roma people by Pavee Point.

Society on the whole tends to view older people as non-sexual beings. Inaccurate as that may be, it is nothing new. However, it can have a particularly detrimental effect on the healthcare needs of those in the LGBT+ community. Since 2018, a course for health and social care professionals has been helping to make healthcare settings more welcoming.

Geraldine and Killian, both participants on a Special Community Employment Scheme, spoke to Changing Ireland about how they moved from being panicky, nervous and withdrawn to becoming confident, hopeful and action-orientated people. They had both been through treatment, but found the scheme was helpful for them to move on from addiction.

Fórsa trade union, which represents Community Employment (CE) workers across the country, have concluded a ballot on new pay proposals, and a new mechanism for pay negotiations for CE workers. The proposals were issued by the Workplace Relations Commission (WRC) following discussions last month with the Department of Social Protection, which funds the schemes.

Barry Corkery is one of this year’s selectors on the Cork senior football management team. He is less well known in Cork for his day job as a senior addiction counsellor managing two treatment centres in Tralee, Co. Kerry. Corkery is obviously good with teams and he once told the Irish Examiner that while the HSE got “loads of attention” when things go wrong, the work of his own addiction support teams would blow you away.