Memorandum submitted by the Training for
Women Network
The Training for Women Network (TWN) would like
to submit the two enclosed research reports In Their Own Words
and Women, Civil Society and Peacebuilding as evidence
before the above inquiry[3].
They are both the result of extensive research in the areas of
the victims sector in Northern Ireland and the role of women in
the transition from conflict.
TWN is a network of women's organisations and
individuals in Northern Ireland with a membership spanning all
geographical areas and sectors of the region. As a funding body,
TWN has extensive experience in the selection, administration,
monitoring and evaluation of women's training projects in community
settings on both sides of the divide with a focus on peace and
reconciliation. Both enclosed reports demonstrate the centrality
of women in post-conflict arrangements and activities.
CURRENT SITUATION WITH WSN MEMBER GROUPS
ALL SIX
KEY BELFAST
WOMEN'S
GROUPS
Ballybeen Women's Centre
Ballybeen Women's Centre offers a variety of
services to local women, including three childcare facilities.
All of the core posts including Finance, Admin, Management and
Childcare are under threat due to the current funding climate.
If funding doesn't come on stream in the immediate to short-term
future it will be impossible for Ballybeen Women's Centre to continue
delivering these services at their current capacity.
Footprints Women's Centre
Closure may be a reality for Footprints Women's
Centre if the current funding crisis is not resolved. Footprints
offer many services and facilities to local women; these include
education and childcare facilities. For example; Footprints offers
the only day-care childcare provision in the Colin Glen area and
is the biggest local employer outside of industry. Potentially
35 posts and services that are accessed by hundreds of women each
year could be lost.
Falls Women's Centre
Falls Women's Centre offer a range of services
to and for women. Various staff and services are under threat
due to the current funding crisis. For example, two Admin workers
and three staff in the advice and family support unit have been
put onto protective notice. If funding doesn't come on stream
in the immediate to short-term future it will be impossible for
Falls Women's Centre to continue delivering their services at
their current capacity.
Greenway Women's Centre
By the end of March 2005 Greenway WC could lose
much of their core staff team including the education worker,
cre"che workers and the finance/admin worker. The Essential
Skills education worker is funded until June 2006 and the Voluntary
Co-ordinator is supported by the Volunteer Development Agency
until March 2006. However, the centre will not be able to sustain
its work without the core staff team.
Shankill Women's Centre
Four staff are currently on protective notices.
By the end of 13 June workers could be on protective notices,
leaving one core-funded post. There is simply no way to continue
with the volume of work unless funding is secured for the posts
at, at least their current capacity.
Windsor Women's Centre
Six of Windsor's core staff (including the Job-share
co-ordinators, Finance officer, Administration officer, Cleaner
and the Childcare Co-ordinater) have been on protective notice
from the end of February. Two posts in the childcare department
are funded until June 2005; with a further three posts continuing
until September 2005. The advice unit in Windsor has been closed
since August 2005 due to a lack of funding. In the eight months
of 2004 that the advice unit was operational they dealt with 3,300
clients. Windsor Women's Centre will not be able to continue to
meet the needs of their local community, at its current capacity
if funding is not available to fully resource this work.
OTHER CENTRES
AND WOMEN'S
ORGANISATIONS
Atlas Women's Centre, Lisburn
All funding for staff (with the exception of
one project) is under threat. Slippage monies will sustain two
workers (admin and Childcare) until June 2005. The Centre Manager
has agreed to work voluntarily for two months from the end of
March. All other staff posts could be lost by the end of the month.
If the centre closes the following services will be lost—The
cre"che at Atlas Women's Centre which serves over 30 families
a week, with some 100 students places a week attending the courses
which range from computing to flower arranging, sign language
to first aid.
Women's News (Skills training Bi-monthly and magazine
publication)
Beyond March Women's News have one part-time
training post funded until the end of June and part-time tutor
hours (not a post, 12 hrs max per week) until December 2005. However,
they will be losing one part-time Finance/Administration worker,
one part-time editor, one part-time training worker and one full-time
Marketing/Fundraising worker—total staff loses of three
part and one full time staff member. Obviously this situation
is a serious threat to WNs being able to continue to stay open.
A drastically reduced training service, with no magazine publication
is the best-case scenario at this point in time.
Ardoyne Women's Group
AWG employs one full time co-ordinator, one
part-time cre"che worker and one part-time finance and admin
worker. They have not been paid a salary since the end of October
2004. They continue to keep the centre open and some programmes
running and are working without pay to enable the group to continue
operating in the North Belfast area in the hope that they will
hear from their potential funder soon.
Citywide Women's Consortium
CWC is a consortium of women's community based
education providers and user groups. The currently employ two
full-time staff. Their funding ends in December 2005.
Women's Tec
Women's Tec have a variety of funded projects
with different end dates on project completion, however, the funding
for core staff costs including organisation Director and Finance/Admin
staff comes to an end on 31 March 2005. Without the funding for
these core posts all of the Wtec projects will also be jeopardised.
Ballymurphy Women's Group
Various end dates for different staff. The funding
for the Co-ordinator's post ends in June 2005. The continuation
of all of the work of the organisation will be under threat if
core costs and core staff are not funded. A BRO application to
secure three posts has been unsuccessful and they are appealing
this decision.
GROUPS CLOSING
Belfast Women's Training Services
BWTS is closing down after 12 years of operation
with the loss of four part-time and four full-time staff. This
is a major blow to the women's community-based education sector
with a loss of 200 training places per year. Since 1993 over 2,000
women have completed training courses and personal development
programmes through BWTS.
Women Educating for Transformation (WEFT)
Dublin & Dundalk with cross-border work.
The Dublin office closed at the end of January
and the Dundalk office will close at the end of April.
CONCLUSION COMMENT
Much of the funding for women's organisations
is coming to an end in the next few months. We are still awaiting
the Taskforce report-back on the future funding of the community
and voluntary sector almost a year after the consultation ended,
and given the delays in the processing of Belfast Regeneration
Office (BRO) Neighbourhood Renewal applications and a lack of
other funding opportunities—things are looking bleak for
many of our member groups. The above information is only a fraction
of the groups than are going to be affected by the current funding
situation.
The long term effects of this under-resourcing
(or even non-resourcing) of the work of the women's sector will
have implications across, and beyond, the community and voluntary
sector, reducing locally accessible and high quality services
for women and their families in many of the recognised and documented
areas of greatest need.
Supplementary Memorandum submitted by
the Training for Women Network
WOMEN'S ORGANISATIONS AND THE FUNDING CRISIS
IN NORTHERN IRELAND
INTRODUCTION
It has been generally acknowledged that women
have sustained communities in Northern Ireland throughout the
conflict, carrying out the daily tasks associated with domestic
survival regardless of the political situation or conflict-related
incidents. Women's organisations have been central to the care
and support given to individuals suffering the effects of the
conflict. Indeed, studies of victimhood in the conflict have revealed
that women far outnumber men in terms of those suffering trauma,
those seeking help and those providing care.
Women's organisations have also been at the
forefront of inter-community connections, peacebuilding initiatives
and the defusing of conflict within and between communities. This
is recognised in international agreements, such as UN Resolution
1325 (2000). In the context of Northern Ireland, women have been
and remain at the cutting edge of reconciliation initiatives.
FUNDING CRISES
The women's sector in Northern Ireland, despite
the provision of such essential services, has been chronically
underfunded. Where funding has been provided, it has been piecemeal,
short term and late, causing many within the sector to seek more
stable work elsewhere, creating anxiety for the future and drawing
valuable time and resources away from the vital work of the organisations.
In the case of women's centres in Belfast, the
Office of the First Minister and Deputy First Minister granted
emergency funding for one year in March 2004, which expires on
31 March 2005. To date, there has been no indication of where
continued funding might be drawn from. In addition, the reduction
in funding led a number of organisations to look to European funding
from the Peace and Reconciliation Programme for the purposes of
stability, but also in the acknowledgement that women's groups
have so much to offer in the area of peace and reconciliation.
Now this fund has been reduced for the Peace II extension and
the cutting of measures that benefited women (Measures 1.5—regained
through intensive lobbying; 2.5 and 4.1), groups are looking again
for funding from the Government that has been discontinued.
THE STATE
OF FUNDING
FOR WOMEN'S
GROUPS, MARCH
2005
The following is a brief summary of the state
of funding for some groups in the women's sector who have responded
for the purposes of this submission:
— Belfast Women's Training Services—closed
31 March due to lack of funding.
— Ballybeen Women's Centre—all
posts and services under immediate threat.
— Footprints Women's Centre—35
posts and all services under threat.
— Falls Women's Centre—two admin
workers and three staff on protective notice, current capacity
threatened without funding in the short term.
— Greenway Women's Centre—much
of core staffing will go by the end of March, without which work
cannot be sustained, two other workers funded to March and June
2006.
— Shankill Women's Centre—four
staff on protective notices, nine more by the end of June 2005,
leaving one core-funded post.
— Windsor Women's Centre—six
core staff on protective notice, two more posts funded to June
2005 and three to September 2005, advice centre closed August
2004 (which dealt with 3,300 clients in the eight months it was
open), cannot sustain the current capacity.
— Atlas Women's Centre—All staff
funded to the end of March, except for two posts to June 2005,
when the centre may have to close.
— Women's News—Part-time
training post funded to June and part-time tutor hours to December
2005. Three part-time and one full-time post to be lost in the
immediate future with a threat of imminent closure.
— Ardoyne Women's Group—All posts
unpaid since October 2004.
— Citywide Women's Consortium—Funding
ends December 2005.
— Women's Tec—Some project posts
funded to various dates, but core post funding ends 31 March 2005,
putting project posts in jeopardy.
— Ballymurphy Women's Group—Co-ordinator's
post ends June 2005, refused further core funding by the BRO.
— Women Educating for Transformation—One
office closed January, other office in April, which will end the
crucial cross-border work of this organisation.
— Rasharkin Women's Group—One
project funded to December 2005, all others being lost by the
end of April.
— Gorbals Women's Group—New cross-community
group that is threatened with closure.
— Women's Centre, Derry—Reliant
on further funding to prevent closure.
— Peace II projects, Measure 1.5—half
of the 34 women's training projects will be unsustained from mid-2006
and half of the 91 childcare projects from mid-2005.
— Peace II projects, Measures 2.5 and
4.1—no further funding beyond 2006, many ending during 2005.
— Rural networks—five of the
six networks without funding or losing funding by the end of March
2005.
This list is a small part of the general state
of the women's sector in Northern Ireland, comprising only those
that have been able to be contacted, could respond and be collated
in the short space of time required for submission. If the premise
that women's organisations are crucial to the support of victims
of the conflict and central to the process of reconciliation (see
separate submissions to the Committee, Women, Civil Society and
Peacebuilding and In Their Own Words: A Research Report into the
Victims Sector), the work of these organisations would need to
be expanded in the current political climate, not drastically
reduced, as is currently the case.
March 2005
3 Not printed. Back
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