Oct 12
0

Belfast woman appointed as UN Youth Delegate

By | General, News, Newsroom

A young Belfast woman is the first person from Northern Ireland to be appointed as a Youth Delegate to the United Nations.

Tara Grace Connolly will assist the Irish Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade in a year that Ireland has been elected to the UN Security Council.

The 22-year-old law graduate, who has just completed her Masters’ degree in International Relations at Queen’s University, said it was a great honour to be selected.

“It’s a real privilege to be the first person from the north to be picked for this role. I got the confirmation at the beginning of September and had to keep the secret for three weeks until it was formally announced by the Irish Foreign Minister Simon Coveney.”

Tara Grace and her fellow delegate, Conn McCarrick from Dublin, will spend the year working with the Department of Foreign Affairs and the Permanent Mission to the UN to represent the views of young people.

Simon Coveney, speaking after a virtual meeting with the two young delegates said that during their term, they would be working on issues affecting young people in co-operation with fellow youth delegates from around the world.

He added: “Their contribution, whether virtual or in person, will be vital over the coming year in ensuring that young people are represented in Ireland’s engagement at the UN. As Ireland prepares to take its seat on the UN Security Council in January 2012, they will also play an important role in building awareness of the work of the UN and the role Ireland plays on the global stage.”

Originally from West Belfast, Tara Grace has been working on human rights and youth participation since the tender age of nine.

She said: “I wrote a letter to Al Gore when I was nine complaining about climate change and the melting of the polar ice caps and have been working on issues that affect young people ever since.”

Tara served as chairperson of the Northern Ireland Youth Forum and the Belfast Youth Forum and is a graduate of the Washington Ireland Program Class of 2017. She spent two months in Washington DC working in the Northern Ireland Bureau.

Chris Quinn, Director of the NI Youth Forum, said the organisation was so proud of Tara Grace and grateful for her commitment over the past eight years.

He added: “During this time, she championed speaking truth to power and taking a lead on campaigning for social justice and equality. Young people from the island of Ireland are sure to benefit as I am sure that she will reinforce this message directly to the UN.”

She co-founded the youth anti-Brexit campaign ‘Our Future Our Choice Northern Ireland’, addressing a million people at the March for a People’s Vote rally in London in October 2019.

“That was a surreal experience. It was on my birthday and the crowd sang Happy Birthday to me,” she added.

Tara Grace has presented at the UN Committee of the Rights of the Child in Geneva as a peer advocate with the Children’s Law Centre and is a member of the US Embassy Dublin Young Leaders Council.

She was named Belfast’s Celebrated Citizen in 2015 and was awarded the 2016 Voice of Young People Award. She has also been active in campaign work with Trócaire, Friends of the Earth and the Irish Development Education Association (IDEA) and has been active in Queen’s University’s Students’ Union and debating society.

She is looking forward to a busy year ahead: “A lot of our work will be around peace and security and sustainable development. I am representing the whole island, but I will be giving a northern perspective on things, redefining what it means to be a young person in Ireland.”

 

Oct 12
0

Ground-breaking course helps women to campaign against social injustice

By | General, News, Newsroom

A ground-breaking course is giving women the confidence to take on the authorities and fight for the rights of disadvantaged people.

The Community Campaigners Course run by the Women’s Resource and Development Agency (WRDA) offers free online training to women to provide them with the tools to campaign for better services for their communities.

Women’s rights campaigner Kellie Turtle who devised the course said: “”I’ve met so many women with issues they care about and they just need a basic toolkit of ideas, strategies and tips to really make a difference. We’re looking for people who are ready to be part of a community of people creating positive change.”

Orla Fitzsimons who runs the Parents for Action CIC social enterprise and Independent Family Advocacy Service for parent carers, has benefited from the course and urged fellow activists to take part in the online sessions to make sure their voices are heard.

As a result of attending the course Ms Fitzsimons is launching the Parent Pride campaign to challenge the Education Authority and address the failings in special educational needs systems, identified in the NI Commissioner for Children and Young People’s Report ‘Too Little Too Late’, published in April 2020. This included a failure to help children with special needs return to their special and mainstream schools safely, following lockdown

She added: “The campaign we are launching to highlight this failure would not be happening without this course. Children with special needs were sent back to school without medical or mental health assessments. We were given no advice on how to integrate them back to school safely and many like my son couldn’t tolerate it and are now back at home.”

The course, which consists of four half day sessions, covers critical thinking, communication skills, strategic planning and how to use human rights and equality law to strengthen a campaign. They will start on Zoom in October, November and December.

Deirdre Quinn, the WRDA course co-ordinator, said the aim of the Belfast City Council-funded course was to get more women into leadership roles in their local communities.

She said: “There are many women who are passionate about issues and wish to become activists to improve the quality of life in their areas but need the confidence and practical skills to get the powers-that-be to sit up and take notice. Because of Covid-19 we have had to move our training online, but this means we will be able to reach more of those determined women.”

Participants do not need prior education or training, just an interest in developing their campaigning skills for the good of the community. Anyone wishing to take part must be from the Belfast City Council area. Those successfully taking part will acquire a Level Three Open College Network (OCN) NI in Community Campaigning and Lobbying.

WRDA Director Anne McVicker said: “This course is all about empowering women to get resources at a local community level. They are often best placed to identify the needs of their community in all sorts of areas such as perinatal mental health care, helping elderly people suffering from isolation and support for carers looking after family members with dementia.”

If you wish to take part, send a paragraph explaining why you are interested to deirdre.quinn@wrda.net

Sep 28
0

NI company invests to supply more Personal Protective Equipment

By | Business, Corporate, News, Newsroom

A Northern Ireland based healthcare company has increased capacity to provide more personal protective equipment (PPE) to healthcare professionals, organisations and individual members of the public throughout Ireland and the UK.

NI-PPE.com has employed more staff and increased its warehouse and office space in response to extra demand for contactless thermometers, face coverings, masks, gloves, aprons, goggles, face visors and hand sanitiser.

The company, a division of HealthCare Essentials Ltd based at Ards Business Hub in Newtownards, has created a high specification Web shop to enable fast dispatch with click and collect services to ensure vital PPE reaches organisations and individuals in time.

Mark Dinsmore MD of HealthCare Essentials Ltd, said: “The Covid-19 Pandemic has stretched global supply chains of PPE like never before. The previous supply chain model has been exposed and people now realise the importance of local hubs and supplies of PPE.”

“As a company we have adopted to the growth in demand for Personal Protective Equipment by investing to increase our capacity. We have seen a marked growth in demand from local businesses and education sectors as well as our long-standing healthcare clients.”

Mr Dinsmore added: “Our team are working to ensure local organisations and individuals have the right PPE equipment to mitigate risk as the economy starts to reopen for business.”

Parent company HealthCare Essentials Ltd has been providing medical & surgical equipment, RPE products plus services and PPE to the healthcare industry from its base at Ards Business Hub for the past 12 years.

Ards Business Hub Chief Executive Nichola Lockhart said: “NI-PPE.com is an innovative company that is adapting quickly to new circumstances to provide an online retail platform to provide vital equipment to help fight the Covid-19 crisis. We have been delighted to provide whatever service we can including offering extra office space to enable them to increase their sales.”

For more information go to: www.ni-ppe.com

Sep 28
0

From Hollywood to Dollywood: Belfast film composer shares life in screen industry with next generation

By | Business, Creative Industries, Film

He’s worked with Dolly Parton, wrote music for Oscar-winning movie The Shape of Water, but Belfast film composer Mark Gordon’s career in the screen industry happened purely by chance and now he wants to share what he’s learned with the next generation.

Mark is one of 15 leading screen industry professionals offering free online specialist training for young people through the ScreenWorks platform funded by NI Screen and run by education charity Into Film.

While at university in the 1990’s Mark played in indie bands and even supported Ash at Maysfield Leisure Centre until fortune sent him spinning off in a different direction.

“I was playing in some local bands and luckily some of the music I had co-written ended up in a couple of big TV shows, Malcolm in the Middle and Sesame Street. I had a friend working with a local media company and sent some music to them and it went from there,” he said.

He describes how he was in LA doing some co-writing when he got the opportunity to pitch a song for Guillermo Del Toro’s new film, The Shape of Water, which won the Best Film Oscar in 2018.

“It was a background piece of music in a scene set in a mall and they were looking for some 1950’s advertisement music. The music supervisor couldn’t find pieces from that period, so we made up a jingle for a pretend brand called Monty’s Moustache Wax, wrote a full lyric performed by a Barbershop Quartet and mixed it using vintage recording equipment to get an authentic sound. It was a great opportunity,” he said.

His chance to work with Dolly Parton occurred while he was providing the music for popular children’s animated series, Lily’s Driftwood Bay on Nickelodeon. The country music legend was guest-starring as Noleen the Country and Western chicken, so Mark wrote four songs for her and recorded them in her studio at Dollywood in Tennessee.

“It was unbelievably nerve wracking at the time. I was with my colleague Colin Williams, the creator and producer of the show she was guesting on. The main thing her manager said was that she had listened to the demos, would be well prepared and would get it right. He added that what she wanted from us was strong direction and not to be overawed. I sat down with an acoustic guitar and played the songs to her and we recorded them. It was an amazing experience,” he added.

Mark, who runs the company Score Draw Music, is one of 15 leading professionals providing expert tuition for ScreenWorks Online, a series of web-based videos

offering training to young people interested in the screen industry. The programme, which is funded by the Department of Communities through Northern Ireland Screen and delivered by education charity Into Film offers those aged 14-19 an opportunity to learn more about careers in the sector.

He has recorded a special 35 minute video for ScreenWorks online, talking about his role and career to give students an insight into Music Composition as a career. In addition, he has set a number of exercises for students to complete at home to give them  first-hand experience at creating an original composition to accompany a film scene.

“Organisations like Into Film are very effective in giving pathways and opportunities to young people. These are opportunities that people in the rest of the UK would struggle to access,” he added.

ScreenWorks Online is being hosted on Into Film’s new learning platform at www.intofilm.org/screenworksonline As well as offering 15 expert tutorials exploring different screen careers it has a separate “Careers corner” which looks at CV writing and set etiquette.

ScreenWorks co-ordinator Sean Boyle said the aim was to encourage teachers and young people to use the programme in the classroom and at home.

“ScreenWorks Online is available to all young people aged 14-19 keen to learn about the exciting career opportunities here in Northern Ireland. We would encourage them to watch the videos and participate in the tasks to find out more about this fun and fast-moving sector.”

Ends