Rose Conway-Walsh Urges Deeper Community Engagement in Dialogue
Rose Conway-Walsh spoke about the need for stronger community engagement around the proposal before the committee and commended on-the-ground activists for their work. She called for participative, straight-talking consultation and warned against an industry of observers profiting from frontline efforts.
Community engagement concerns
Rose Conway-Walsh asked for clarity on how communities were engaged in preparing the proposal and welcomed on-the-ground engagement by Karen Sutherman as reflecting community development principles. She echoed a question raised by Paul about the depth and quality of engagement with local communities.
Praise for grassroots workers
She wholeheartedly commended the people working on the ground, saying they rarely get recognition and cautioning against an industry of observers and spectators who build careers at others' expense. She cited her own observations of women from the Shankill Road and the Falls Road and described their work as brilliant and fantastic.
Dialogues and local initiatives
Rose Conway-Walsh outlined her involvement as Chair of a Dialogue Forum over the past year and a half, describing it as a cross-party, partly cross-border series of monthly dialogue meetings. She noted participation in community dialogue at the Duncairn Community Centre in North Belfast, mediation work, and recent funding for engagements planned over the next 18 months.
Collaborations and contributors
She referenced collaboration with figures and groups involved in the dialogues, including Dylan Quinn, Conversation NI, Keith McNair and the Clinton Centre in Enniskillen, and praised David Holloway's contribution to the production of the paper. She said the consultation process is underway and needs to deepen to be meaningful.
Purpose of the paper and next steps
Rose Conway-Walsh described the paper as intended to complement ongoing dialogues, provide space for ideas to develop, and be fully participative and open to all. She suggested the initiative should change participants as it progresses and signalled willingness to engage further and continue the work locally in Belfast.
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I think one of the pertinent questions there that Paul put was around the engagement with communities around the preparation of the proposal that's before us today. I think it would be really useful to know the engagement and I really think, I do want to commend, I wasn't aware of that, that Karen Sutherman had actually engaged with yourselves, Paul, on the ground because to me as somebody coming from a community development background that is exactly the principles of community development and I mean, I see a whole industry being set up. We can't see you all, I'm sorry, your camera might be working I think. Can you hear me, Fergus? We can hear you but we'd like to see you as well, just if we switch the camera off and on, apparently it works, I've been told by Paul here. Sometimes. Sometimes. It's just, you know, just. The committee yesterday, is that, does that work now for you? Yeah, there you are, we can see you now. Okay, Grant. No, I'll just make the final point because I want to give Neil time to come back and answer to Paul's question. And that is that there's a whole industry being manufactured of observers and spectators, but I wholeheartedly want to commend the people on the ground who are trying to do their very best. And they're the ones that never get the recognition in the media and never get the recognition in all of the forums and all of the people who are making money in a lot of cases, but making careers as well on the backs of those people who are really doing the hard work. I have witnessed for myself. I have witnessed for myself in terms of women from the Shanklin Road and women from the Falls Road and different parts of the north, the brilliant and fantastic work that they did. And I really think that that is the way forward for all of us. But Neil, maybe just around the community engagement and I might get a chance to come in later on. Thanks, Chair. We just have a minute left in the Sinn Féin slot now. So Neil, if you can, there's another Sinn Féin slot in about 10 minutes, if you want to wait till then. If you want to use up the minute now, I don't mind. Go ahead, Neil. We can't hear you. Sorry. I think that should be all right now. So a year and a half I've worked with, it's called Dialogue Forum, where I've been the Chair, which is a community cross-border. Sorry, cross-party. It is a slightly cross-border as well, a series of monthly dialogue meetings. I'm part also of community dialogue in the Duncairn Community Centre in North Belfast and mediator there, part of a series of engagements that has been launched in these weeks over the next 18 months and that the funding has just come in for that lately. We have been involved with Dylan Quinn and Conversation NI, Keith McNair, involved with youth education groups, but now located in Clinton Centre in Enniskillen. So that's the background material. Now, what we've done is because this came into being reasonably quickly and an additional process of consultation is in process. And we've gained from that, I mean, David Holloway, who's the Director of Community Dialogue, has been very, very valuable to the production of this, for one example. And I appreciate that that has to deepen. And I want to tell you just like this, when I came to live in Belfast, I came for work to Belfast, but because I didn't know my way around, I didn't, I hardly knew any people. I chose to live in a reasonably safe area where I am right now, actually, but I will be located in East Belfast from now and I'm engaged with some of the groups there already. So this is a work in progress and it is designed to be completely participative and open to all and to feed into it. It's designed in part to be just to be simply a reflection so that people's own ideas can develop and it may in time disappear and then its work would be done. So, but some of us in discussion over the last number of months felt that a paper of this kind would be extremely useful, if only as an addition to the dialogues that are taking place and they have to become much more meaningful and straight talking. And Paul would be very happy to engage further in all of this work and to engage with yourself and others. I have been around West Belfast a fair bit, got lost on Lanark Way about a year ago, but found my way out. I must confess, I hailed a taxi and I know Belfast, you don't usually hail taxis. I have to go home for them, but I was following a sat-nav that wasn't giving me fair directions. So it said I had about three miles to go to the Crumlin Road and it only a half a mile. So, but I mean this is a delightful, delightful city, delightful part of the world. I've sort of made it my home in recent years and so that deepens and thank you, thank you for the bit of challenge that's in that. Because if this doesn't change us as we're going through it, it's not worth it. You know, it changes us. We're part of the change. Neil, I have to move on to the next slot now, but I hear what you're saying. And I'll be right back. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you very much.
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