Newry Early Years Centre awarded funding under £500k food scheme

Newry Early Years Children and Family Centre is one of five Northern Ireland community projects to be awarded a share of over £500k worth of funding over the next three years aimed at improving health through food in low-income communities. 

The investment has been made by safefood as part of its Community Food Initiatives (CFI) Programme 2019-21 which aims to positively influence the eating habits of families in disadvantaged communities of Northern Ireland by enhancing food skills and making healthy food more accessible.

safefood is investing a total of £538,000 in 14 community projects across the island of Ireland.

The other community projects in Northern Ireland that will share the total funding are: New Lodge Duncairn Community Health Partnership (Belfast); The Resurgam Trust (Lisburn); North Antrim Community Network (Ballymena) and Bogside & Brandywell Initiative (Derry).

Ray Dolan, Chief Executive at safefood said, “Our Community Food Initiatives are amazing examples of how investing in local communities can make a tangible difference to people’s lives, not only for today but for the future.

“The community-led approach has the potential to positively influence the food habits of families which can impact on health, from childhood through to adult life.

“These projects help increase knowledge around food and healthy eating, teach healthier shopping and enhanced cooking skills and give those in need the confidence to make a start and stick with it. These are real skills that can benefit an entire community.

He added, “safefood has been funding community food projects on the island of Ireland for over six years and these have helped upwards of 30,000 people during that time. The new funding stream announced will build on that legacy and we look forward to these projects acting as champions in our local communities and beyond.”

Discussing the work at Newry Early Years Children & Family Centre, Sinead Wadforth, CFI Co-ordinator said, “We aim to engage with the local community, to promote healthy eating and wellbeing and to provide opportunities for gaining new skills especially in learning how to cook healthy and nutritious meals that all the family will enjoy.

She added, “We are really looking forward to the opportunity to deliver this programme within our area and working in partnership to ensure that we reach a range of diverse families that will benefit from taking part.”

Since first launched in 2010, 30 communities on the island to date have received funding from safefood under successive Community Food Initiatives programmes.

A key feature of the programme is that learnings and experiences from previous programmes are shared among the new projects. New projects are also encouraged and supported to enhance the long-term sustainability of their project from the outset.

For more information on The Community Food Initiatives (CFI) Programme 2019-2021 visit:  www.safefood.eu

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Posted by Newry Times News on Apr 5 2019. Filed under Business, Community. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry