THERE is a more urgent need than ever for the International Fund for Ireland to support cross community enterprises in areas of social and economic deprivation, the chairman of the organisation says.
Mr William McCarter was speaking yesterday in Derry, where he outlined details of the fund's Community In Action pilot programme.
Thirty projects, 23 in Northern Ireland and seven in Border counties of the Republic, will receive funds totalling £7.5 million for projects dealing with women and young people.
The projects will each receive funds ranging from £50,000 to £100,000 each year for the next three years.
Mr McCarter said there was a disappointing contrast between this year and last year, when he officially launched the project.
"When we launched the programme last summer the prospects for peace were high and this climate encouraged us to see the potential for change in many aspects of life, in particular in relation to the kind of future we wanted for our children and young people.
"Many of the areas of social and economic disadvantage were also the areas which experienced the worst effects of the violence and sectarianism of the previous 25 years, so hope for change was particularly important.
"However, the ending of one ceasefire and the events of the summer months have troubled us all deeply. There is a more urgent need, therefore, to continue to work at all levels to create better understanding and to ensure that those efforts to create a better, peaceful and more equitable society continue," he said.
Mr McCarter said that although the fund was unable to support all the applications for assistance under the project, the requests for help were indicative of the commitment by local people to work to effect beneficial change in their community. He said the programme offered new resources and new opportunities for the future.
The projects include family support initiatives, youth development work, personal and educational development and provisions for teenagers and women.
One, the North Belfast Communities in Action, links the New Lodge, Ardoyne and Ligoneil areas, each of which - has a high level of unemployment, a large number of children and a high level of violence.
Another, the Windsor Women's Workshops in Belfast's Donegall Road, will use its funding to offer women training in a range of non-traditional skills such as carpentry and electrical and plumbing work.
In Drogheda, the Youth Development Project will use its lFI allocation to help tackle the problems of early school-leaving and disaffection with education in a town in which 25 per cent of the population is under the age of 25.
In Dundalk, the Women's Education and Training Programme, which grew out of women's groups in the Cox's Demesne-Muirhevnamor housing estate, will direct its cash boost to help local women re-enter the labour market.