This article is from page 56 of the 2008-08-19 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 56 JPG
THE Gort Family Resource Centre will this week celebrate 5 years of community work in the area with the announcement of a number of new opportunities for local people.
The centre, which is based in the town’s square, is about to extend its premises and and also expand on the number of community facilities and courses on offer.
“The resource centre is driven by a group of volunteers who represent the different people and needs of the community. It’s open to all and anyone interested or curious should come in,” said Sandra Farrell, Centre Administrator.
“We have now expanded our offices by taking on the second floor of our premises here in the square. That will allow us to increase what we can do with and for the local people.”
The group provides a range of serv- ices including citizen information days, migrant information, employ- ment and career guidance, money advice and budgeting and work with the gay and lesbian community.
“We have a lot going on at the mo- ment. We were lucky enough to get funding for six computers and have been running programmes for older people to get some basic computer skills. That is very popular and we are about to start a new eight week course from the beginning of Sep-
tember,’ said centre co-ordinator Ann Rozario.
“We are also about to start parent- ing classes for single parents. There are still places in that so anyone in- terested should give us a buzz. We have new programmmes starting all the time and are always looking for people interested in volunteering.”
Indeed, the actions at the centre are driven almost exclusively by volun- teers.
‘“T have been helping out a lot with the directory which is a book of useful local number in English and Portuguese,’ said volunteer Helen Scribens.
“It’s nice to do something for the local community – to give something
back. You get to meet a lot of differ- ent new people from the area. It’s a lot of fun.”
The centre has recently taken on a development officer who will look at different ways to grow the service over the next number of years.
Frank Murray, who was one of the founding members of the Gort Bra- Zilian Association, will look after the development of facilities for the Bra- Zilian community, the elderly, lone parenting youth and isolated men.
New events and programmes are being announced in the resource cen- tre on a regular basis.
To keep in touch with goings-on contact 091 6309021 or call into the centre.