by Sarah Clancy | Dec 9, 2020 | Members News, National, PPN News |
Draft Community Wellbeing Vision Statements for County Clare:
Beginning in October 2020 Clare Public Participation Network conducted a process of creating Community Wellbeing Visions for Clare. The process involved consultation with the general public via an online survey, consultation and appraisal of the results of this survey with Clare PPN members at our October Plenary Meeting, and this was then followed by eight online meetings – two held in each of Clare’s four Municipal Districts.
Following the above three steps Clare PPN staff compiled the attached Draft Community Wellbeing Vision Statements -there are five in total with one being an overall summary which applies to County Clare as a whole and the four others each relating to one of Clare’s Municipal Districts. We are presenting these statements here in draft form and inviting our member groups to take the chance to read them and to propose any changes, additions or correct any omissions as you see fit.
These statements will be used to guide the work and priorities of Clare PPN staff and secretariat and our representatives on Committees. They will also be used along with further specific policy consultations to guide and inform submissions made by Clare PPN to local and national policies. We propose that these wellbeing vision statements will be kept as ‘open’ documents for Clare PPN and that they will be offered for consideration and review to members once per year so that we ensure they remain relevant and current.
For those who participated in our consultation process we would like to draw it to your attention that some of the very specific suggestions around actions or particular developments in the county were included in Clare PPN’s two submissions to the pre draft stage of Clare County Council’s County Development Plan. You can read those submissions here:
We are most grateful to all who participated in this worthwhile project so far and we encourage you to send any further thoughts or input to us by emailing sarah@clareppn.ie by January 15th 2020 after which these Community Wellbeing Visions will be deemed adopted.
Clare PPN County Level Wellbeing Vision Statement
Clare PPN Draft Wellbeing Vision Statement Ennis MD
Clare PPN Draft Wellbeing Vision Statement West Clare MD
Clare PPN Draft Wellbeing Vision Statement Killaloe MD
Clare PPN Draft Wellbeing Vision Statement Shannon MD
by Sarah Clancy | Sep 2, 2020 | Members News, PPN News |
Help us imagine a better Clare for future generations
Fill out our short ‘Vision for Community Wellbeing’ survey about what your area needs – and you could win a prize for you or your organisation
How can we make Co Clare the best it can be for this and future generations? We want to hear what your vision is for a community in which all people can thrive. Complete our short survey for a chance to be one of four winners of a €100 voucher or a €500 for an organisation.
Here at Clare PPN we are excited to be undertaking a really important project – we want to hear the views of people and groups from across the county to produce a Vision for Community Wellbeing. This will be a kind of proclamation for Co Clare, setting out our shared vision for the kind of community we want to live in, a document that will guide us when we engage with the local and national policies and plans that affect all our lives.
You can play a key role in creating this vision by taking some time to think about what you value most about your area and community already, and about what your area and community needs to make it the best it can be for the many generations to come. When you’ve given it some thought we would like to invite you to take a few minutes to fill out our survey.
The survey is anonymous and confidential, although we will publish the findings and use them to inform Clare PPN’s work. However, to help encourage people to take the survey we are offering great prizes and if you would like to be in the draw for these prizes we need your email address.
Prizes: one person in each of Clare’s four Municipal Districts will win a €100 voucher for a local outlet of their choice. And one person will win our bumper prize of €500 for an organisation of their choice. You can nominate any PPN member organisation in the final question of the survey.
No one will be identifiable from any report or publication arising from the survey.
https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/Clare_Wellbeing
What is community wellbeing?
We often think about wellbeing in terms of good physical and mental health, but it can also describe the wider conditions we need as individuals and communities to have a better quality of life, a healthier environment and increased prosperity. Some of these are things we can easily measure, such as the number of pre-school places, or how quickly an ambulance can get to a sick person. Others are less easily measured, such as our pride of place, our heritage and the way in which we all look after each other. All aspects of community wellbeing are interconnected and that’s why our survey includes questions on a variety of topics. For example, if our natural environment is poor, it can affect our mental and physical health as well as our economy.
Why is the Vision for Community Wellbeing important?
The Vision for Community Wellbeing will set out the hopes and aspirations of people in Clare and of the members of Clare PPN. It will be a written statement that we can use to base our suggestions and submissions on when we engage with local and national bodies. It can help us as the PPN to take a longer term view of how Clare might develop into the future. The PPN and all our voluntary representatives will use this Community Wellbeing Vision as their mandate and work towards having it recognised and supported by all the bodies we engage with.
By considering all aspects of society, people, the environment, economy and democracy together, wellbeing can help us to identify and prioritise positive actions that can be taken by local and national governments, as well as by communities. Communities themselves need to participate actively in setting out their shared view of what their community would be like if it were the best that it could be.
How will this process work?
We are inviting you, the people and community organisations who live in Clare, to shape this Vision for Community Wellbeing, under headings such as health, social and community development, the environment and public participation. See diagram below.
We had planned to hold public consultation workshops in each of Clare’s four Municipal Districts. However, this has not been possible, due to the Covid-19 and the restrictions it has imposed on us and so instead we are beginning the process with an online survey. After the survey is completed we will organise online meetings to discuss the results for each Municipal District and gather any further ideas from those. The results of the survey and meetings will help to create a Vision for Community Wellbeing statement for each Municipal District and one for the county as a whole.
You can help to shape the future of life in Clare by filling out our short survey about your or your organisation’s hopes and aspirations for your community:
https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/Clare_Wellbeing
The survey will close on Tuesday, October 6th. We look forward to hearing from you!
by Sarah Clancy | May 19, 2020 | Current, PPN News |
Postcards from the Edge: Aung Marma – ‘Meditation helps you stay calm’
Living in direct provision means Aung Marma is more vulnerable to infection from Covid-19. He worries, but also keeps calm by taking exercise, keeping busy and meditating
My name is Aung Marma. I was born in 1991. I’m originally from Bangladesh. My ethnicity is Marma, which is one of the 13 ethnic groups in Bangladesh. My religion by birth is Buddhism.
Bangladesh is predominantly Muslim, and for that reason most of our ethnic groups have to face fatality from Islamic extremists and we don’t get justice for what happened to us. Which is why we migrated to neighbouring countries, India and Burma.
As we are Buddhists, the impact of Islamist extremists came on us. Once we were attacked in 2003. Then I went to Sri Lanka for my safety and for further studies in 2008. And I started my studies at university level. In 2016, when I went back to see my mother who was sick, I was attacked by some Muslim settlers and I had flee to Burma for my life.
And from Burma I made a false passport and returned to Sri Lanka. From Sri Lanka I came to Ireland in June 2019 for my safety and to raise my voice for our people, who are suffering at the hands of extremists and are seeking refuge from the world. I hope my voice will be heard by the whole world someday.
So now I am here in Ireland, living as an asylum-seeker and living in the direct provision system.
Living in direct provision means you are more vulnerable to being infected by the Covid-19 virus, since we have to live with many people in the same building.
The Irish Government has taken the initial steps to prevent the spread of coronavirus, and the managers and workers in our centre have taken all the precautions to prevent infection from the virus. Honestly, I do not have any objections to the management and to the authorities.
I know this pandemic affects different people in different ways. I have seen that some of my friends seem very stressed worrying about their families and their
future. I do also worry, but I keep myself calm, knowing that the pandemic will be over sooner or later.
In Buddhism, the Buddha has taught us about Anicca (impermanence), Dukkha (suffering) and Anatta (constant change) – in this world every phenomenon is changeable and not permanent. If one comes to understand the truth as truth, so they can live in calm.
So my idea is to keep myself busy by doing activities. When you’re staying home, do some physical and mental exercise. Physical exercise can be done by yourself and mental exercise can be done by practising meditation. Meditation helps people to understand the reality of things by being attentive to what’s
going on around you. And meditation also helps you to see the impermanence of the Covid-19 pandemic.
I would like to ask people to be wiser and calmer to face this disaster and to take every precaution imposed by the authorities. I thank the Government of Ireland for taking the initial precautions for preventing the pandemic. And I would also like to see the laws and rules continue to be implemented until Covid-19 has been completely uprooted from Ireland.
I am well aware that people have reasons to break the rules of government, but if we break the rules we will have to face more fatalities from coronavirus, that is for sure. Therefore, we must be far-sighted and act wisely.
The views expressed in this article do not necessarily represent the views of all of the Clare PPN.
• We’d like to hear from you! Back to normal or time for radical change? We’re asking people for their views (in less than 350 words) on how to move forward together in Clare in the wake of Covid-19. You can win a €50 restaurant/take-away voucher. Details of how to submit here:
https://clareppn.ie/what-do-we-want/
by Sarah Clancy | Mar 20, 2020 | Members News, PPN News |
Survey for Clare community groups on response to Covid-19
Clare PPN and Clare Volunteer Centre are working together to make the best uses of our resources during this Covid-19 outbreak.
We are fully aware that community and voluntary groups in County Clare provide essential services to vulnerable people in our communities and that many of the people who provide these services are already working at full capacity.
We are conducting a survey of community groups so that we can see where voluntary support might be needed over the coming weeks and months.
We would really appreciate it if you could complete the short survey at the link below, as soon as possible, to let us know who you are currently serving in the county and what your organisation might need in terms of supports.
by Sarah Clancy | Apr 7, 2017 | Current, PPN News |
Want to know what Clare dwellers think about life in Clare?
We asked 370 people and community groups for their thoughts on a whole range of issues from their own wellbeing to their views on local government in our specially designed survey. You can read the summary report here and it makes for interesting reading. Our sincere thanks to everyone who participated in the survey. We know what you’re thinking…
Summary Report from Clare PPN’s Monster Wellbeing Survey
