The Wheel and NICVA (its sister organisation in Northern Ireland) are inviting charities, community groups and social enterprises to join them for a special series of exploratory meetings on all-island issues, including pandemic recovery, rural connectivity, digital inclusion, achieving SDGs, and more.
It’s part of a new programme called iCommunity, which promotes collaboration between nonprofits and social enterprises in Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland.
This series of five meetings is the first step in gathering our nonprofit and for impact community’s thoughts on how we might address the major challenges of our time on an all-island, collaborative basis. The first two meetings are as follows:
Developing the Island Economy and Social Enterprise – 23 February, 15:00 – 16:30 GMT
Click HERE to register
There are new opportunities to develop the island economy, increasing linkages between business and markets in both jurisdictions. Some opportunities may be controversial such as extracting resources for the carbon economy and other mineral intensive industries. How can we ensure that communities benefit and are not burdened by economic activities? Do Social Enterprises hold a part of the solution? What other approaches, such as community wealth building, or ensuring social and environmental community benefit in tendering processes, could be developed to tie economic benefits to social and environmental considerations?
Delivering the SDGs: Achieving a Just Transition to a De-Carbonized and Sustainable Island – 24 February
Click HERE to register
Delivering the SDGs: what are the existing mechanisms for public participation, for example, the lessons learned in citizens assemblies and SDG champions. Do people and communities and indeed Government know about the breadth of the SDG 2030 commitments – and what can be done to increase engagement around achieving the targets – and set stretch targets for ourselves? What new approaches, such as the People’s Transition, and community-led and owned climate actions, can help speed up achieving a just transition to a de-carbonized, sustainable, and biodiverse island in the context of Code Red timeframes to act?
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The aim of the project is to help organisations to share practices, learn from existing work, and develop new opportunities.
The project is supported by the Shared Island Unit in the Department of the Taoiseach, Department of Foreign Affairs’ Reconciliation Fund, and the Northern Ireland Department for Communities.
Other meetings due to take place are:
- Recovery from The COVID-19 Pandemic (3 March)
- Rural Connectivity & Sustainability (9 March)
- Digital Connectedness & Inclusion (10 March)
Details over the coming days..