b'HERE, PETER DORMAN, A STAFF MEMBER AT CAN, TELLS THE STORY OF THE ORGANIZATION AND THE DIFFERENCE THE IRELAND FUNDS IS MAKING FOR COMMUNITIES ON THE MARGINS.CANis a social justice organization. OurCAN s early work in the 1980s focused onCAN s work has grown to become national. motto is Placing People at the Heart of Change.developing innovative training programs to helpWedevelopedaccreditedlearningprogramsin Thepeoplearegroupsinsocietythatlive local people be a voice for their communities. Wecommunity and leadership development, human with inequality. The change is in the systems toalso worked directly with edgling organizationsrights-based responses to issues of inequality, dia-perpetuate the inequalities. to become stronger and more eective in support- logue-based methods for resolving core problems ing local youth, tackling the drug problems andin communities and new and better tools for sup-addressing unemployment and housing issues. porting organizations tackling inequality.Innovative Funding for Y Innovative Ideas YA lot of our work is in social housing communities, particularly in DublinsFollowing this success, CAN applied for The Ireland Funds Flagship Award city center. One of the most intractable issues for these communities is per- for a wider response to anti-social behavior, focusing on the more challeng-sistent anti-social behavior (ASB), much of it by children and young people.ing impact of drug trade related ASB in neighborhoods. Though shortlisted, Children growing up in communities marked by poverty, poor housing con- we were unsuccessful in getting a Flagship Award. ditions, unemployment and drug and alcohol addiction can grow up withYet preparing for the application with advice from The Ireland Funds signicant stress and trauma. Often, anti-social behavior can develop intosta,enabledustothinkaboutwhatinnovationscouldmakearealcriminality. dierence to communities living with drug trade-related anti-social behavior. CAN has responded with a range of initiatives to tackle this problem. OneThe application to The Ireland Funds Flagship Award led to a strategic plan. of our rst innovations was to establish the Dublin 8/12 Restorative PracticeWe began to develop additional programs, but we lacked the capacity to fully Partnership. Restorative Practice is a proven method of addressing the harmdrive the plan.caused by oensive behavior. It focuses on improving and mending rela- However a couple of years later, The Ireland Funds introduced us to its tionships through dialogue, teaching children to deal with their emotions, todonor Ray Wilson, a native of Rialto in south inner-city Dublin, now living in learn to empathize and to appreciate fairness. It has been shown to be muchAustralia. Ray met us in his native Rialto, and we took him on a whistle-stop more eective than traditional disciplinary methods such as exclusion fromtour of some of the projects we were struggling to launch. He visited a series school. of our projects:The Ireland Funds support Targeted Response with Youth (TRY)an outreach program working for CA N innovationwith 18 young men involved in drug dealing and moving them into recovery, TheIrelandFundsgrantin2017enabledCANtoorganizeRestorativeeducation and employment.Practice Training for almost 20 teachers, youth workers, community work-ers, Garda, volunteers and others working in settings marked by ASB. WeWelcome on the Mat a project in our public housing neighborhoods also established a coalition of these professionals to work towards makingworking to positively integrate the growing numbers of migrants settling Dublin district 8 and district 12 restorative communities. Since then over 60 amongst existing white Irish neighborhoods. individuals have taken training. We have also focused on one local area, Inchicore South, where schoolsHe also met with the activists and community workers ensuring the public and youth projects will be part of programs to become Whole Organizationbuild projects in the area, such as the new childrens hospital, included social restorative communities. This will mean that sta, boards of management,clauses to benet the community.children and parents will all be part of these three-year programs. As theseRay said of that experience, During my visits to the above CAN projects, organizations are all close together in the heart of South Inchicore, their par- I was so impressed by the caliber of the individuals leading change in their ticipation in these programs will impact signicantly on the whole communi- communities and by the results they are achieving in addressing social in-ty. In all, some 300 children and young people will participate. equality and the lack of access to opportunities. As a Liberties boy myself, it is a privilege to be in a position along with The Ireland Funds to support 3 All this started with The Ireland Funds supportthese wonderful people and these game-changing projects at CAN.and allowed us in turn to access funding worthRay made a signicant Donor Advised Gift in partnership with The Ireland three times the original grant. Funds Australia. That donation enabled CAN to accelerate our work on these projects and others. connect 202023'