Donegal County Council, in conjunction with Donegal County Community Forum, East Donegal Community Forum and its partners in the vit project (very important twinning, volunteering in town) hosted a seminar in Letterkenny this week on building sustainable communities.
Michael ó’Heanaigh, director of service, Donegal County Council said that “this seminar was an opportunity to explore community development opportunities and learn from other regions about how they have harnessed their own local resources in terms of people, culture, local enterprise and natural resources to make their communities more sustainable”.
He added that “this seminar focused on a number of themes over its two days including looking at the importance of international collaboration in sustaining a viable local community, the role of volunteers in our communities, the need for social infrastructure, the importance of culture and enterprise in maintaining a viable community and the value of sport and its role in building strong cohesive communities”.
The upcoming gathering event 2013 has placed a great emphasis on connecting with the international diaspora, Rory O Shaughnessy from the south east Galway diaspora project outlined their efforts in connecting with the irish overseas.
Of particular interest to community groups was the section on town twinning and the possible benefits it can bring to the developmental work of community organisations.
Teresa Casserly from the europe for citizens programme gave a presentation on the first morning of the seminar on the benefits to be gained from twinning with other communities and immediately following this Robert Fabiansk, a resident of Letterkenny but originally from Weilun in Poland talked about his experience of twinning Letterkenny with his home town of Weilun and about the work that he has being doing in facilitating children from schools in letterkenny to work with children from schools in Weilun.
Other topics of interest included the importance of volunteering and how vital it is to have strong social infrastructure available to allow for the successful development of a community.
Ines Novella Abril from Valencia, Spain outlined the practice of volunteering in spain providing the audience with an opportunity to share insights and learn from practices in other countries.
The second day of the seminar concentrated on the role that culture and enterprise play in developing and sustaining viable communities and in particular the importance of developing and maintaining donegal’s own cultural identity as a way of sustaining our community.
The audience heard from a number of good practice community enterprise projects including the castlefinn partnership initiative and the north west taxi proprietors.
The final part of the seminar focused on the value of sport in the community and the Donegal Sports Partnership, the fai and the GAA outlined the range of sporting activity currently being undertaken in Donegal followed by a presentation from the special olympics organisation which highlighted the key role that volunteering plays in their movement and the reasons that motivate people to volunteer.
