Why community education matters

We believe deeply in the power of community education to transform society for the better, sustainably, in the long term. The ambitions and wellbeing of our region have been stymied as a legacy of bad policy, and ongoing political instability at Stormont makes progress more difficult to achieve. We see education as a strategic asset for the community, to drive change in the present and influence better policy in the future.

We focus on fact-based conversations, and take a strategic view of engaging stakeholders, policymakers and community practitioners, to achieve sustainable social change through education.

Future Leaders

Future Leaders is a year-long development programme to up-skill, increase capacity and network leaders in the sector.

Future Leaders is tailored for early-career or aspiring leaders in the community and voluntary sector. The programme addresses the succession-planning gap and offers a valuable opportunity for organisations to increase the leadership capabilities of their staff/volunteers to ensure readiness for the future. Future Leaders promotes personal and professional development, critical thinking and collaboration.

Future Leaders is a transformative up-skilling opportunity for both workers and organisations in the community sector. With its focus on developing leadership skills, the program equips participants with the tools and knowledge needed to develop their careers, and by supporting people through the programme, organisations are investing in their own and the sectors long term viability.

Future Relationship Conversations

Future Relationship Conversations engages with the community – with particular focus on those who identify, or have identified, as Protestant, unionist or loyalist – on attitudes to possible alternative future relationships and constitutional arrangements, including on which arrangements might be most acceptable and which might best hold people to this island.

Already there has been a series of engagements, that have led to the identification of topics to be researched with reports launched at a final conference in early December 2021. Holywell Trust is taking a facilitative role in the process and does not have a preferred outcome on the constitutional issue other than enhancing the discussion by providing accurate and informed information.

There is a need, and growing desire across communities, to have a conversation on the future constitutional status of Northern Ireland and Ireland. The conversation needs to be broad, encompassing all future possibilities. The Future Relationship Conversations project engages with the community, to begin to remove uncertainty and move the conversation beyond the normal identity focused assumptions.

Brexit has added an extra dimension to the conversation and has made the possibility of a border poll more likely alongside the ongoing calls for independence from many in Scotland. The Brexit process has also clearly demonstrated the dangers in holding referendums with limited information on the outcome of the decisions.

We are convinced that if people have been informed and engaged on issues, and have the opportunity to shape and inform debate, that the impact of the conversations will be less divisive in local communities.

Thirty

Holywell Trust’s mission is to be a thought-leader for the community, and one of the key elements of this is to raise the voice of the community to policymakers and civil servants. Thirty is a focussed distillation of this core aim, where we use a revised Citizen’s Assembly model to amplify the voice of the community.

We do this by convening a series of ‘mini citizen’s assemblies’, bringing together thirty people to learn about, discuss, and come up with solutions to some of the most pressing issues facing Northern Ireland.

We begin by recruiting thirty individuals from all walks of life, and we provide them with research materials and guidance on how the assembly will work. Then, we invite them to a two-day residential focussed on addressing one specific issue, featuring expert speakers to give a balanced, fact-based range of views. We facilitate a democratic process where ideas and solutions are proposed and voted on by the assembly, until we reach an agreed set of recommendations.

Holywell Trust takes the recommendations, and facilitates influencing workshops where the ideas are proposed to policy makers and political representatives.