5 Community Heroes
Every little helps when it comes to community building. Here’s a roundup of some of our favourite Irish helping hands supporting those around them.
Care Alliance Ireland, with funding from the HSE, set up a mental health Facebook group aimed at people who care for their loved ones at home. The vast majority of its 3,000 odd members hadn’t engaged with a support group before the pandemic so this on-demand resource is more than welcome news.
Set up in March 2020, the Online Family Carer Support Group is a peer-to-peer initiative at its core. The group moderators are health and social care professionals and family carers, offering a safe space to discuss all aspects of the life of a family carer. There’s a social aspect to it too with a book club, monthly quiz nights, weekly coffee mornings, ongoing chair yoga sessions, a busy gardening club, plus a new 'Crafty Carers' group.
Visit carealliance.ie.
2>> TREATS FOR EVERYONE
This group of volunteers want to bake the world a better place – and they’re doing just that by crafting birthday cakes for people in emergency accommodation and in direct provision.
The 500-strong legion of bakers behind Consider it Cakes, an initiative also born out of the pandemic, lovingly prepare each and every celebratory creation with the person in mind.
Covering most of Ireland, in 16 areas from Clare and Kerry to Dublin and Wicklow, Consider it Cakes also works with homeless charities to supply sweet treats, such as buns, all year round as well as organise collections for families in need. Visit everyone-deserves-a birthday-cake.jimdosite.com.
3>> BUILDING HOMES
Ireland has a long tradition of neighbours helping one another, in the spirit of meitheal – whether it was to harvest crops or help each other limewash or even build their homes. Today, there’s the Goodness Army, a community building non-profit that coordinates free labour and supplies to build homes for those in need. It all started with a project featured on RTÉ’s DIY SOS series, rebuilding the late Michael Barry’s home in Dundrum. Since then, volunteers have built homes in Limerick and Tipperary. Visit goodnessarmy.ie.
4>> ZERO WASTE GARDEN
Turning a derelict plot into a garden may not sound like an enormous feat, but it keeps unwanted behaviour at bay and provides an amenity – not to mention a social space – for residents. It also means there is no need to pay for the upkeep of mowing the lawn. This particular patch of green in Rathcoffey, Co Kildare is a zero-waste community garden to boot, harvesting rainwater – a total of 11,000 litres collected in drums and square tubs, basically anything the residents could get their hands on. To deal with the overflow of water when it rains heavily, there’s a man-made 4.5 square meter wildlife pond.
The one-and-a-half-acre garden project in this council estate started in 2018 and was driven by its resident’s association. If you fancy doing something similar, get in touch - they offer training and you can find them on facebook.com/zero-waste-community-garden-Rathcofey.
5>> REDUCE THEN RECYCLE
Whether you’re back at the office or are feeling guilty about the amount of plastic waste that’s mounting at home, check out Precious Plastic Dublin. It’s a new volunteer collective set up in 2019 with a fresh take on recycling.
Part of the Precious Plastic global moment, the Dublin team wants to get you excited about your HDPE bottle caps – start collecting them to make sure they get converted into long-lasting products such as bowls, flower pots, clipboards, coasters and other versatile creations.