A myriad of amazing arts and crafts were proudly displayed for everyone to see, enjoyed by a large crowd that was warmly welcomed at the community centre.
Housing Executive Cohesion funding was awarded for a 10 week arts and crafts course. The attendees learned many new arts and craft skills while at the same time reducing social isolation, meeting neighbours of other religions and learning to recognise and process mental health issues.
Members of the Clady and Urney Arts and Crafts Group have been coming together for around four years to create items from skills such as tapestry, sewing, crochet, painting, basket weaving, repousse. They meet every week and regularly have more than 90 people attending, a great way to provide a much needed lifeline to many people living alone in rural areas.
Mary McCorkell, from the Clady and Urney Arts and Crafts Group, said members have been delighted with the many benefits of this 10 week course:
We’ve learned so many new skills and enjoyed meeting new people. It gets quite noisy sometimes!
“We wanted to get involved in a project that would bring people from different cultural backgrounds together, in a bid to address the issues of social interaction and rural isolation while promoting good relations in the area.
“We’re very proud that our club is attended by local neighbours of religions and ethnic backgrounds. It has led to many other events and takes in areas such as Meetinghouse, Sion Mills, Strabane, Castlefinn and the wider outlying rural areas.”
“Thanks so much to the Housing Executive for their generous financial support.”
Our local Housing Executive Manager, Noel McNulty, was also there on the day. He said:
“After being approached by the group, we were happy to approve funding which enabled the club to reach out and offer community support through arts and crafts.
“We would like to congratulate the group on their growing success and I would encourage other community organisations to approach us with their ideas.”
