Feb 24
0

NI Youth Forum holds emergency meeting to discuss teen suicide crisis

By | News, Newsroom

The Northern Ireland Youth Forum has held an emergency meeting to discuss the growing teenage suicide and mental health crisis.

The meeting was called as NIYF Director Chris Quinn described the Christmas and New Year period as the worst he had witnessed in his years working in the voluntary sector.

He said: “We are all in this room because we care. This isn’t about pointing the finger it’s about working together to address this crisis.”

Among those attending the meeting were politicians, representatives of statutory and voluntary bodies, young people and family members directly affected by recent events.

The political representatives included West Belfast Sinn Fein MLA Orlaithi Flynn; North Belfast Green Party Councillor Malachy O’Hara, North Belfast SDLP Councillor Paul McCusker, Strangford Ulster Unionist MLA Mike Nesbitt, North Down Green Party MLA Rachel Woods and East Belfast Alliance MLA Chris Lyttle.

Also attending was Colette Cole, mother of North Belfast man Deaglan Cole, who died on January 5 after a long battle with drug addiction. Mrs Cole has called on the Health Minister Robin Swann to act now to address the mental health crisis.

NIYF Vice Chair, Oisín-Tomás ó Raghallaigh said everyone had a responsibility to address the issue of suicide: “I don’t think we can shy away from the fact that we collectively aren’t doing enough. We want people to come together to explore the barriers to young people getting help.”

Natalie Corbett, a Participation Development Worker with NIYF, shared her recent experiences  spending time in casualty with one distraught young person desperately trying to access services.

She added: “It’s our job to signpost young people to appropriate mental health services. What do we do when those services aren’t equipped to deal with young people in need?

The young person I have spoken about said to me the other day, ‘they say it’s ok to not be ok but nobody listens to you when you aren’t’.”

Seamus Mullen, Head of the Public Health Agency, said it was vital that young people were fully aware of the services available to them.

He said that peer engagement was really important: “It’s about trying to find new ways of getting the message out there. It is vital that young people are talking to other young people about the range of services they can access.”

Feb 24
0

Government provides £2.4m to support NI’s first smart micro grid energy project

By | Business, Corporate, General, News, Newsroom

The £7.5m Girona project has received £2.4m in Government funding to bring the first ever ‘smart grid’ to Northern Ireland, offering business and domestic customers cleaner and cheaper energy.

Poweron Technologies Limited, incubated at Innovation Factory in West Belfast, is being supported, along with GES Group in Ballymena, by the Government’s Innovate UK scheme to help fund a project that will transform the way energy is generated and consumed.

Eddie McGoldrick, Director of Poweron, trading as The Electric Storage Company said:

“We want to make the energy market more democratic, consumers feel they have no choice when it comes to the big energy companies.

These innovations are an easy, inexpensive way to bring smart energy solutions like solar panels and battery storage into consumers daily lives. The ‘micro-grid’ isn’t just good for the environment because it uses more renewables, contributing to the Net Zero target, it will also see a reduction in energy bills”

 David Moore, Chief Executive Officer of GES Group said:

 “Providing more flexible energy solutions holds big benefits for businesses. Reducing their environmental impact not to mention their energy bills is often a key objective for companies, but investing in the technology needed to do so is often expensive. Our innovative system of financing the technology means they too can reap the rewards without large outlays.”

By combining Northern Ireland’s expertise in power engineering, fintech and big data, with the government investment, the aim is to ‘scale up’, repeating the smart approach across Ireland and GB.

Belfast Harbour is currently being utilised as a testbed for the Northern Ireland micro-grid and Trevor Anderson, Director of Infrastructure & Business Transformation at Belfast Harbour said “We welcome the opportunity to work in partnership with Girona in developing this technology and are fully supportive of the plans for a micro-grid to grow and expand within a large-scale test environment.  This aligns with our ambitions to be the best regional port in the world and to embed SMART and sustainable technology across our business”

NIE Networks has been supporting the ‘Micro Grid’ project through exploring the impact the technologies will have on the electricity distribution network in Northern Ireland.  Ian Bailie, Network Development Manager for NIE Networks said:

“We are delighted to see the Micro Grid project receive further support and it’s been a privilege to have played such a critical role from the start in such an innovative project. Our Future Networks team has been assessing the impacts the deployed technologies will have on the electricity network and analyzing that data to shape how the final technology will operate. This project will enable domestic customers to have a meaningful impact on the network and transform the future of energy generation and consumption in Northern Ireland.”

Feb 24
0

International Women’s Day organisers have ‘Rights in Sight’

By | Festivals, General, News, Newsroom

The organisers of this year’s International Women’s Day celebrations in Northern Ireland are setting their sights on equal treatment for all.

 ‘Rights in Sight’ is the theme of this year’s International Women’s Day Rally on March 7 with thousands of people gathering to celebrate women’s achievements including recent changes that have improved equality legislation.

These include the legalisation of Same Sex Marriage and the decriminalisation of abortion in Northern Ireland, two issues the Women’s Movement have been demanding for many years.

The rally will have its usual family-friendly, carnival atmosphere, with samba drummers, ukulele players, circus performers and participants in period Suffragette costumes as they march from Writer’s Square to Belfast City Hall to hear speeches from leading members of the women’s movement.

“The International Women’s Day rally is an event to celebrate together but it’s also time for us to continue to press for parity with our sisters in Great Britain and Ireland. Here in Northern Ireland we are using outdated laws and we call on the Assembly to bring us in line with the rest of the UK to use legislation that is relevant today,” said Danielle Roberts, co-chair of Reclaim the Agenda.

“We need Government to make new laws and to develop strategies on childcare and gender equality. We need them to implement legislation properly rather than looking for loopholes and massaging figures,” she added.

Northern Ireland has the worst incidence of domestic abuse in the UK, yet has no legislation tackling stalking, up-skirting and coercive control. To coincide with International Women’s Day a motion is going before Belfast City Council highlighting sexual harassment and violence against women.

The restoration of the Northern Ireland Assembly has seen movement in the area of domestic abuse with Justice Minister Naomi Long promising new laws on stalking and making abusive behaviour in domestic and close family relationships a criminal offence.

These measures have been welcomed by women’s groups but they have vowed continue to maintain the pressure until new laws that address inequality are on the statute books.

The Lord Mayor of Belfast, Councillor Daniel Baker, said: “I’m delighted to get alongside Reclaim the Agenda to raise awareness of the International Women’s Day rally which will take place on Saturday March 7 and to highlight the programme of events running in Belfast throughout the month. I would encourage everyone to come along, especially on March 7, as we celebrate women’s accomplishments and highlight what still needs to be achieved to create an equal society for all regardless of sex or gender in our city.”

The International Women’s Day programme in Northern Ireland includes a full month of activities, events, workshops, talks and gigs.

Highlights include:

  • Lunchtime lecture – Women on the front line of climate change
  • Lunchtime lecture – Fighting Austerity or Embedding Poverty
  • Panel discussion with QUB Gender Network – Feminist Abolition & The Harms of Criminalisation
  • Belfast Ravens host a Women’s Football Match in 3G pitches on Ormeau Park

For more information about this year’s International Women’s Day across Northern Ireland go to the International Women’s Day Northern Ireland and Reclaim the Agenda Facebook pages.

Feb 24
0

Schoolchildren witness the legacy of the Troubles through the lens of film

By | Creative Industries, Film, News, Newsroom

Seventy schoolchildren have been given a unique insight into life inside prison at the height of the Troubles, thanks to the power of film.

The screening of selected footage from the Prisons Memory Archive (PMA) took place at the Public Records Office of Northern Ireland (PRONI) in Titanic Quarter in association with education charity, Into Film.

The event included talks from two former prisoners from both sides of the conflict, Progressive Unionist Party leader Billy Hutchinson a former UVF prisoner who served 16 years between 1974-90 in Long Kesh and Maze Prison and Angela Nelson, a former Republican prisoner who was on remand at Armagh Gaol between 1973 and 1975 and 1976-77.

Both spoke about their experiences of life inside and how they became involved in the conflict. The school children also heard from Joanna McMinn, an Open University teacher, who taught Women’s Studies on the H Blocks.

Sean Kelly from Into Film said the event illustrated the power of film to educate young people about their history and culture, a chance to learn from the past.

“These young people have no direct experience of growing up during the Troubles so this screening and talk is a powerful living memory of what it was like during those difficult times and a warning that they should never be repeated. Archive events such as this further illustrate the power of film as an educational tool and the importance of storytelling within our culture,” he said.

Cahal McLaughlin, director of PMA said: “The legacy of the past is still with us. The stories in the Prisons Memory Archive from those who experienced the Troubles are important in our understanding of where we have come from and in helping us to move forward.”

The PMA is a collection of 175 filmed walk-and-talk recordings with those who had a connection with Armagh Gaol and the Maze and Long Kesh Prison during the conflict. Recordings took place in 2006 and 2007 within the empty prison sites, and the archive includes stories from a wide range of people connected with the prisons, including former prisoners, prison staff and teachers. The archive also contains video footage and photos from both sites.

With the backing of the National Lottery Heritage Fund a new partnership between the PMA, PRONI and QUB is making the recordings, footage and photographs accessible at PRONI and through a new interactive website.

An active outreach programme also aims to engage people, including schoolchildren, through events, to help them learn about their shared heritage.

For more information about the PMA and to watch a selection of recordings visit: www.prisonsmemoryarchive.com