This article is from page 6 of the 2011-07-05 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 6 JPG
A NEW group which aims to fight for the right of the unemployed and marginalized in Clare will be officially formed in the coming week. The group, which is a collection of employed and unemployed volunteers, is currently working under the name ‘Hope for the Marginalized’ but is aiming to host an AGM before the end of July and officially launch the group.
The first aim of the group will be to lobby for practical and inexpensive changes to education, social welfare and local business strategies which they feel could have a massive effect on the lives of young unemployed people.
“We have found that we can work towards and very workable ideas that we could lobby the Government to introduce changes which will make our country a better place to live in,” said Ennis woman Paula McNamara of Hope for the Marginalized.
“At the moment the unemployment crisis is so massive, especially in this part of the county, so our first aim to work in that area but after that we would hope to broaden out our work to other parts of the community who are marginalized.
“The group isn’t just people who are unemployed – it is a wide cross section of people in Clare. If anyone who has any ideas that they think might help the situation then we’d love to hear from them.
“We are at a crossroads now, we have to make a choice about how we want this country to be. Do we want it to be focused about bailing out the banks and forget about the weak and vulnerable or should we think about this in a different, more sensible way.”
Some of the ideas put forward by the group include targeted training in universities, colleges, VECs and FÁS, which would see a greater focus on offering courses in areas where there is a realistic prospect of a job.
The group is also looking for all people on social welfare to be given a single case worker to oversee every aspect of the case, from benefits to retraining opportunities and is calling for a greater emphasis to be put on alternative local opportunities for creating jobs.
“We know that the country is broke – that is why we are not calling for big schemes, we are looking at practical solutions which could help drag us out of this situation,” continued Paula.
Anyone who wants to be involved in Hope for the Marginalized can contact Paula on hopeforthemarginal ized@gmail.com.