Rose Conway-Walsh: Funding Barriers, Identity and Youth Support

It's really good to see you here. I'm delighted that you took the time to come here to discuss your project. I'm very familiar with your project and I really just want to publicly commend you yourself first on the work that you do and how you do it, and how you measure the outcomes of what you do, and I know how effective it is. It was a great pleasure for me to go to your recent graduation and to see all those young people whose lives are being changed, so well done for that. I also want to thank you for coming to Mayo to meet with the youth groups in Mayo, and as you rightly pointed out, the commonalities between the two, and I think it's right in terms of, as you say, the struggles, the struggles that young people in Mayo have, the struggles young people in East Belfast have, and the exchange of learning from there, and I look forward to that progressing. So I have a couple of questions. First, when you refer to the all Ireland, the communities who aren't benefiting from the peace dividend or the Good Friday agreement dividend, can you identify some of the barriers that are there for communities who aren't benefiting from that? Maybe I'll ask you the three questions that I have first, so maybe just to identify some of those barriers. Then I want to ask you explicitly what the committee here can do to support organisations like Phoenix, like yourself, with the work that you're doing. I just want to ask you then the question on how you can work together and yet have your identity. So within the Good Friday agreement, obviously there's provision there to be Irish, British or to be both, so obviously you would identify as being British. Do you feel that your identity would be in any way compromised by the cross border work that you do here? And I have lots more, but I'll start off with the first one. So in terms of barriers, I guess peace dividend, like I spoke about, the likes of access to funding through Peace Plus is really difficult to access for smaller organisations on the ground because we don't have that working capital and it really is about building relationships and I have been very, very privileged in my life, especially getting the scholarship that enabled me to study my Masters. That took me to America, which opened up, actually going to America enabled me to meet politicians better for Northern Ireland and Ireland than it did in East Belfast and if I hadn't had that access, I'm not sure I would have been able to have the same level of support with Phoenix and not everybody can do that and not everybody can uproot their lives for two years and go, so there's different barriers around access to education, access to employment, access to decision makers. We talk about gatekeepers within the community and quite often that isn't always the men with woolly masks, quite often it can be other routes and that's maybe for a conversation outside of this public forum. In terms of identity, I don't feel my identity is under threat by any sort of cross border communication because I'm confident enough in my own identity and confident enough to articulate how I feel about my identity, but over the years I have faced challenges from people about engaging with the Irish government, with the Department of Foreign Affairs, but those that I've worked with will know my stance has never changed and my identity has never changed. If you're confident in your identity, I don't think having a cup of tea or a tray baker conversation or project with somebody can change your mind about that. It might help you to become more understanding about the other person's point of view, it might help you to become a bit more empathetic to other people's struggles, but I think education can also do that as well because you're encouraged to read so many different experiences. And then just finally, in terms of what the committee could do, I do have four quick points. If you continue investing in community education, because it can reach the people who traditional systems can't, and ensuring that funding reaches organisations that can demonstrate measurable impact, innovation and community trust, not just those who have been around the longest. Investing in community infrastructure, buildings can create permanence and confidence and local ownership and local ownership in communities that have been deprived is so vitally important because communities feel that they actually own a piece of their history. And then finally, just continue supporting north-south learning exchanges, because like we said, every conversation and every shared learning experience helps to strengthen these islands and social foundations of the Good Friday Agreement. DR FLYNN I think that's really good. I think maybe the committee could just write to the shared island unit, endorsing, acknowledging the support you've got so far, but also pointing out what you have within the foundations for future and how that could be expanded and continue to be funded. The other thing is this committee is doing an all island health report, so you mentioned there in terms of where poverty exists, poor health is experienced, so can we put the voices of the young people and their families, obviously, within that report to make recommendations in how we can ensure that we have better health outcomes for the people that you are working with? DR KAYESS So two thirds of the young people that we work with have social services or youth justice advocate involvement. So whilst the numbers wouldn't be huge because we're taking so much time with young people, I think it's really vitally important to hear their voices in all sorts of reports. So some of our young people have actually presented to the education committee in Stormont to give their views. They've also engaged with the Northern Ireland Children and Young People's Commissioner on drugs and how they feel about mental health. Male suicide is such a hard epidemic that we're facing, not only in East Belfast, but also in West Belfast, especially in young men where drugs are involved. And so I think there is a lot of conversations that could be had with community organisations to input into that health inequality report. DR KAYESS One of my first experiences of doing cross-border work was with North Belfast and PIPs there in matching up with projects that we were doing in Mayo as well. And I suppose part of all that, like in Mindspace in Mayo, who you met as well, who are trying to respond to mental health challenges for young people as well. That exchange of learning, that exchange of knowledge, that exchange of knowledge, that exchange of experience, that mental health challenges for young people as well. That exchange of learning is really valuable as well in supporting the health of young people. I want to ask you, because I know you work with the families as well as the young people, and I know you mentioned before around food banks and just the practicalities within families. Could you maybe just expand a bit on that in terms of support for families? DR KAYESS Certainly. So within the community there are families who actually don't qualify for benefits because maybe both parents are working or they're sitting sort of on this level where they can't access support. So there are a lot of food banks and social supermarkets in East Belfast, and we have a voucher programme. So what that looks like is it's funded through Belfast City Council, through their social supermarket fund, and we provide wraparound support as well as a food voucher, which is basically a gift card of £100 or £50 depending on the number of people in the family. Then we also provide access to, whether it's counselling, signposting for help with what other benefits they could be entitled. So for example, one man didn't know that there was an oil scheme he could be part of. It was like a stamp, but it's not very well advertised. We also have our pre-loved uniform shop, which is just up from our offices that's open all year round, and we take in donations not only for the named jumpers and ties, but also we've had donations of new stuff, so new trousers, shirts, generic things, because uniforms are very expensive. And there is a bill going through Northern Ireland Stormont at the moment looking at the cost of uniforms and the cost of named brands in uniform. So for example, if you have a child who is in big school, as we call it, post-primary school, and they're playing games as well as PE, they have to have their full PE kit, their full games kit, and their uniform. You could be talking about £450 at least for one child. So if you then have two or three children, your school bags, it really adds up, and especially if the, and I can't remember off the top of my head, I think it's between £28,000 and £30,000, you're not under that, you're not entitled to free school meal entitlements, which means you're not entitled to the school uniform grant. And so all of these different competing interests come to, like, what are you going to pay for? And that's when we talk about people are paying to either eat or hate their houses. Now it's okay at the moment because it's so hot, but I do worry about the winter. Okay, thank you.