"Communities Connect" disconnect Cooley

October Meeting of Cooley Environmental and Health Group

It is impossible to hold the attention of indymedia readers long enough to read a full report of all the discussions at this morning's meeting of Cooley Environmental and Health Group. The most heat was generated by a discussion on training.

A special meeting of Cooley Environmental and Health Group took place in The Strand, Omeath, starting with breakfast at 11.00 a.m. on Sunday 9 October 2005.

Matters discussed included handball, "The Cutting" at Greenore, winter workshop on "Isolation," funding, sponsors for www.cooleyehg.com website, finance, pollution/conservation audit of Cooley Peninsula and adjacent waters, North Louth Area Forum.

Discussing training the secretary of the group, Archbishop Michael Desmond Hynes, reported that the residential training course organised in Lusty Beg by Groundwork NI during the previous week had been very enjoyable. It was excellent for meeting people of different persuasions. Members of Cooley Environmental and Health Group were treated very well during their stay in Lusty Beg. "It was an icebreaker," the Archbishop continued. Subjects studied by members of Cooley Environmental and Health Group at the course included conflict resolution, citizenship and identity, facilitation skills, media relations, archery.

The meeting also heard that it was expected that two members of Cooley Environmental and Health Group would take part in a residential course in Bangor in November courtesy of "Conservation Volunteers Ireland."

The meeting heard that although one session had been successfully completed there the 10 session course on community development in Carlingford organised by "Communities Connect" (a joint project of Louth LEADER and Newry and Mourne LEADER) had been discontinued. The course was being run and accredited by The University of Ulster.

The secretary said that Cooley was being segregated and socially excluded. He pointed out that LEADER was supposed to be a rural development program yet the only rural centre for the Communities Connect course, Carlingford, had been aborted while the program continued in Dundalk and Drogheda - both of which are major urban centres in the county. The general feeling in the meeting was that LEADER had reneged on Cooley people and had spurned them and shown disrespect towards them.

"People need connections when they are weak - not when they are strong," the secretary concluded.

The treasurer, Sean Crudden, said "There are women and men in Cooley from the highlands of Spellickanee and Corrakit to the lowlands of Bellurgan and Ballug who have the appetite and capacity for training in community development. Clearly the people of Cooley will continue to walk, unaided by LEADER, within the paths of community development."

As an alternative to the "Communities Connect" course the meeting decided to buy a book on community development and to see what The Open University and Dundalk Institute of Technology might have to offer.

The next meeting of Cooley Environmental and Health Group was fixed for 13 November 2005 commencing at 11.00 a.m. with breakfast in The Strand Hotel, Omeath. All are welcome.