petition | Women's Collective Donegal

NCCWN-Donegal Women’s Network and the other 16 NCCWN are under threat of closure. We truly need the support of the community to prevent this closure and we are therefore asking people to join us in lobbying the government to secure future funding for our valuable work in the community.

We have put together this online petition and asking people across Ireland to please sign it. The petition will be presented to Alan Kelly TD, Irish Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government, who is overseeing the changes which affect our funding.

Why you should support NCCWN

The “National Collective of Community-based Women’s Network’s” (NCCWN) is an organisation made up of 17 women’s networks, its work includes the advocacy of equality and human rights for all women in Ireland. With a working mission to “empower and support community-based women who experience disadvantage and marginalisation as a result of barriers to participation and lack of opportunities”.

Working within a limited budget in 2013 the NCCWN Projects engaged with 36,589 women from communities who do not engage with state agencies. NCCWN have demonstrated that this represents excellent value for money. Funding enables the NCCWN across its 17 projects to not only employ core staff but to also lever in additional funding to coordinate and run development programmes including equality, health & wellbeing, active citizenship, community education, domestic abuse support, employment pathways. Services provided include childcare centres, drop-in/information centres and counselling. In the 17 Projects, this has resulted in the additional employment of approximately 200 people, managed and coordinated by NCCWN staff.

One of the main reasons it is possible to deliver this level of work within a limited budget is that the work is and always has been volunteer managed and led. Work with women from the most disadvantaged communities in the country is happening only because it is underpinned by thousands of volunteer hours and decades of commitment and voluntary effort. NCCWN development programmes encompass equality, education, health, employment paths and supports including childcare provision.

However funding to this project is to end December 2014. NCCWN is extremely concerned that its work in removing barriers to disadvantaged women’s full and equal participation in society and in local and national decision-making and policy arenas will be lost. NCCWN now finds itself lobbying the government to safeguard the funding of the organisations work which is why we are asking for your support today to help secure the future of NCCWN and its local Women’s Projects beyond 2014.