Crowds gathered at Mullingar Parish Community Centre on Wednesday this week to celebrate the launch of Mullingar Communities Together (MCT ).
The new body is a community-based group of volunteers and people from statutory bodies who have come together to identify and respond to the needs of the local authority areas of Grange, Dalton Park, Ennel Court, Farren, and Raheen, and by extension the wider community of Mullingar.
The volunteer group includes three representatives from each area representing residents, childcare, and the community house.
The statutory agencies are the Mullingar Youth Project, VEC, Westmeath County Council, An Garda Siochana, Health Services Executive, Westmeath Community Development Ltd, Open Door Project, and FAS.
The work will be community-driven, with an ethos of ‘respect and accountability’, and will take an effects-based approach to the challenges that lie ahead.
”With issues identified on the ground by the local community, and channelled through their representatives, I am confident that the expertise and experience of the professional steering group will move the process forward in a positive way to address those challenges,” commented Noel O’Callaghan, chairperson of Mullingar Communities Together.
“There are also those we consider ‘auxiliary’ members of our group - members of the clergy and religious orders, local and government elected representatives, the local and national media, and all who have a vested interest in the development of our community in Mullingar.
There is, of course, a challenge for the communities of the five target areas.
“If you are really interested in the development of your area, and the health and prosperity of your children, your young people, and your elderly, then you must work as a key partner with MCT.
“The key is in the name ‘Mullingar Communities Together’, for it is only by working together that we can succeed.”
