Belfast Project funded by O2

• O2
• Its Your Community

Michael Gilmore - O2’s Lisburn Branch Manager - has seen for himself the difference that people from their local community are determined to make, when he presented the project with their It’s Your Community Award on 2 June 2007.

Deemed unsafe due to bomb damage in World War Two, four terraced streets in the area of Belfast’s Mersey Street were bulldozed and with them a community consisting of shops, a school and two Churches. For a year and a half the houses that remained in Mersey Street and Island Street have looked out on a landscape of screed and boulders, a bleak outlook to contemplate until the planned regeneration takes place.

"The heart of a community was flattened with those streets and what wasn’t flattened has been boarded up” John McCandless from the Rivers Community Project said  “but with our successful bid to O2’s It’s Your Community we can continue to change the whole look of this 200 yards of street.  We badly need to re-connect the area with what’s left of the community and begin to lift the spirit of this neighbourhood out from the building rubble it has been left in.”

O2’s It’s Your Community Awards are designed to make a difference to community projects and the grants not only improve the local environment, they bring people together to make changes that the whole community will benefit from.

Managed and judged by the Conservation Foundation It’s Your Community encourages people to ‘think global and act local’ and is aimed at providing funding for projects designed to improve local communities throughout the UK.

O2’s It’s Your Community exists to inspire everyone to make a tangible visible difference to places they live.  Awards should be for the benefit of the community or to build community spirit and affirm the positive position that people are taking to improve their local neighbourhood. Michael added. “If you have an idea about how to make your community a better place, get in touch because It’s Your Community wants to reach anyone who is prepared to take the first step for change and contribute positively to their community.” 

www.itsyourcommunity.co.uk