Trust makes major award to help ensure legacy of 2013

This award will help the Holywell Trust develop a programme over the next two years, which will advance and promote change through exploring the connection between cultural activities and the development of social enterprises. 

This initiative which has just commenced aims to connect with the many cultural activities being promoted in Derry/Londonderry as UK City of Culture. The plan is to ensure that the City of Culture year will leave a legacy of significance for the social economy.

Three part time social innovators will be employed over two years to run the initiative which has three strands as follows: Heritage and Cultural History, The City as a Gallery and the legacy of the shirt industry in the City.

This award of funding from the Trust follows on from previous support of £50,000 over the last two years for the development of the partnership process for the eleven groups involved in the DiverseCity Community Partnership led by Holywell Trust.

Partnership work by these groups is well advanced and construction has begun on a purpose-designed city centre hub for community development and community relations practitioners in Bishop Street.

This new building will be completed by the end of 2013 and the continuing process of partnership building alongside this social economy programme represents a substantial investment in the work of Holywell Trust which should help transform the city centre and lead to the creation of innovative approaches.

Eamonn Deane, Director of Holywell Trust said, “We are delighted with the continuing support from Building Change Trust and we are determined that it will result in a meaningful legacy from the events of City of Culture year. 

“The Building Change Trust is to be congratulated on its imaginative and risk-taking approach to funding the sector”.

The investment in the Holywell Trust represents a strand of the Building Change Trust’s work in developing, and strengthening, the Community and Voluntary Sector in Northern Ireland. 

Building Change Trust Administrator, Nigel McKinney said: “We are delighted to be working alongside the Holywell Trust to develop social enterprises and innovation in the North West.

“We are working in the areas of collaboration, sustainability and learning and influence, and feel the work of Holywell Trust shows a dedication to all three of these areas by encouraging social enterprises to work collaboratively with other agencies, to pass on learning and in doing so become more sustainable.

“However, this is just one part of the Trust’s ongoing work across these areas with exciting work in the fields of collaboration, social innovation, impact measurement and social finance all currently being undertaken by the Trust”. 

For more information on the Trust and it's ongoing work, please contact Nigel McKinney.