Building Creative Communities
Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council welcomes major creativity initiative
18 April 2017
Enabling creativity in every community is a core pillar of the Creative Ireland Programme, an ambitious five-year initiative, from 2017 to 2022, which will place our strongest assets – our culture and creative communities – at the centre of public policy. In 2016, dlr demonstrated its unique capacity to activate and support community engagement and participation in marking the Centenary year through a wide range of arts, cultural and heritage initiatives.
Creative Ireland aims to build on this success by leading on the development of a dedicated Culture and Creativity plan for dlr, based on the premise that participation in cultural activity drives personal and collective creativity, with significant implications for individual and societal wellbeing. 2017 will see a special focus on children and young people with the specific objective of fast-tracking the Charter for Arts in Education, which will significantly increase access and participation for children in high quality arts and culture experiences.
A network of highly experienced arts officers, heritage officers and librarians has been set up across all 31 local authorities to lead on each County’s Creative Ireland Programme. A series of public meetings are also being held to share ideas, develop collaborations and explore opportunities for increased investment in local arts, culture and creative industries. Additional funding to support the initiative will be made available through the Creative Ireland Programme in 2017 with the potential for further investment over the next four years. Mairead Owens, County Librarian, has been appointed Creative Ireland co-ordinator for dlr.
In addition, all the agencies of Government, including national cultural institutions, state agencies, government departments, organisations, individuals and communities will be activated to embed creativity across all aspects of their work and use that creative potential to foster collective wellbeing and social cohesion.
dlr and the Creative Ireland national team will host an open meeting on Wednesday, 26th April at 6.00pm in dlr LexIcon to share details about the Programme and to explore opportunities to increase access, engagement and collaboration in the local arts and creative industries.
Speaking in advance of the public meeting, An Cathaoirleach of dlr, Cllr. Cormac Devlin said: “Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown has a rich tradition of cultural heritage and programming. The Council looks forward to working with Creative Ireland in supporting this initiative by empowering the creative potential of the people of the County. We welcome the opportunity to support community engagement and participation.”
Full details of the Creative Ireland Programme are available at: www.creative.ireland.ie
