NI Community Schools

You are invited to participate and join this adventure by becoming a member of this community with the ability to book rooms and activities online. We want you to engage with us and each other to make this idea become reality. There is a lot on offer whether you are an individual, a business, a community group, a charity, a church or faith group, a voluntary group, a sports club, parents or a group of concerned citizens.

We will be developing activities from hobbies and interests, dance classes, sports clubs, children’s summer schemes, adult learning for interest or qualifications, social networks, music and the arts, Car-boot sales and fundraising events. We are open to develop anything that benefits and regenerates the community. We just need you to come along, join in and help make it happen! For too long, schools have been an amazing resource, underutilised by the whole community. Creating new schools enables us to think again about how we use new state-of-the-art facilities to serve the life-long learning needs’ of the whole community. A strategic partnership has been enabled between the School, the Community and the Public/Private sector in order to build our community capacity and develop individuals, families and groups within them. This is a SOCIAL ENTERPRISE - Social enterprises are for more-than-profit, with a triple bottom line; they deliver on SOCIAL, FINANCIAL and ENVIRONMENTAL targets. The Stakeholders around the school look at the key social challenges that face them, and then they use market-based strategies to tackle and address these social challenges. Prices set are just, fair and appropriately targeted, and any small surplus that is made is fed back into the communities again, targeted at the agreed greatest need. The desire is to collaborate with others and contribute to what is needed in an area to create a sustainable, developmental future for the community around the schools, fostering social capital. We hope that these five schools will be the first of many schools getting together, initially in Belfast, then across Northern Ireland, to benefit their communities in a new way. Click here if you want to register. For help to get started, click here.