Have you met Ruth Moore, our Across the Lines project co-ordinatior?
The Glens Centre welcomes a new team member Ruth Gonsalves Moore. Ruth joins us as the Co-Ordinator for the IFI funded ‘Across the Lines’ programme. Ruth is an experienced fundraiser and projects manager who has worked for over 20 years in community development and arts/cultural programming and production. She is familiar with this border territory having previously worked in both her native Fermanagh, and previously delivered a PEACE III project in Leitrim resulting in an archival documentary film ‘A Sense of Place’. She also previously delivered the unique readers ‘Dialogues through Literature’ cross border programme, working with reading groups, volunteers and staff in County Libraries, Libraries NI and the GAA developing a cross border book trail and two annual symposia with 600 readers and 16 author events in a large summer tent in Ballinamore. Having also spent many years in northern cities of Derry and Belfast, she is a believer in sustainable communities, and as a ‘rural returner’ she hopes to draw from experiences and insights in supporting and nurturing ‘home- grown’ talent, confidence of local artists, and facilitators.
Ruth says she is delighted to be joining The Glens Centre team at this exciting yet continuing challenging time and looks forward to working with the Glens team, Board and the community partners and voluntary groups in Leitrim and Fermanagh on projects which use creativity and the arts to support community development and forge cross community and cross border relationships.
As lead partner in a network of arts and community organisations, the Glens Centre will develop capacity, provide training, support the creation of new works for performance and create jobs and work opportunities. The funding, from the International Fund for Ireland, amounts of €181,000 over two years. The first project “We are Strong” has already been successfully delivered. Joel Smyth of the North Leitrim Men’s Group co-ordinated a group of men in Leitrim to meet with a group of men in Fermanagh (working through the Men Shed) to engage with the Glens centre writer in residence and participant in a storytelling and life skills programme, resulting in new pieces of creative writing by first time writers and evening performances. A women’s programme will also be delivered with North Leitrim Women group and others utilising creative methods and approaches to support women development in the area. The Glens Centre Sound Manager Ray Duffy is putting in place a Creative Industries training course for those interested in developing theatre and performance technical skills, whilst also developing a new recording studio using the old church auditorium as its hub. Other activities to be developed will have some focus on the border and border relations and through music and theatre will enable community engagement and development and may support old and new habits and comings together of people in the North Leitrim and South Fermanagh hinterland.
As our Director Susan McKay recently said: “North Leitrim has suffered for its proximity to the Border and the economic damage inflicted by the Troubles and the recession have had a lasting impact including the emigration from the area of the young. Now Brexit looms over us. We hope that “Across The Lines” will in its own small but significant way encourage confidence among people of all faiths and none along the border, keep some talented young people from leaving, train people for jobs and creative careers and even bring back some of those who have left”.
Ruth Moore can be contacted via acrossthelines@theglenscentre.com.
