THE Upper Andersonstown Community Forum is based in Tullymore and is at the heart of regeneration and development within the Upper Andersonstown area.
Current Chief Executive, Jim Girvan has been in post two-and-a-half years and has been overseeing a number of projects with the group.
“I came in as Director just over two and a half years ago following the sad passing of Tish Holland. It was a really difficult time for the organisation, going through the sudden death of Tish. It was a difficult time for staff and we had to try and support everyone through that process,” he said.
“In the middle of that, we were hit with the Covid-19 pandemic which created major difficulties for everyone. During that period, we were asked by Belfast City Council to take the lead on the initial Covid-19 response for emergency essential food supplies.
“We worked with our other partners in the Neighbourhood Renewal Areas across West Belfast and coordinated the delivery of over 1,500 food parcels.”
Despite this initial challenges, the forum are now moving towards a period of Covid-recovery and assisting the community to deal with the long-term impact of the pandemic.
“We would have had a very vibrant older persons programme. Pre-Covid we would have been looking at probably 15 to 20 classes a week for older people within the community which would have been at maximum capacity.
“When Covid hit and we couldn’t bring people into the building, we changed our approach and made over 200 phone calls a day to older people to stop social isolation. Now we are doing that with a hybrid of contacting people but also getting them back into the centre to tackle social isolation.
“When it comes to Covid-recovery we are currently doing a mix of online stuff as well as face-to-face with the older persons programme that we are running.”
The Upper Andersonstown Community Forum also run a youth club at Tullymore which is open four nights a week.
“The youth club is very vibrant and is doing brilliant work to support young people with their mental health and their personal development.
“We also run adult education classes such as computers but we are identifying mental health as a major issue alongside poverty. We are seeing people coming through our doors who are needing support when it comes to poverty.
“We are also the lead organisation for West Belfast in supporting people with fuel poverty with the help of Belfast City Council. We are in the final stages of getting that put together and getting it out to people through food and fuel vouchers.”
Jim said that the Covid pandemic has been the main issue that he has had to deal with so far during his time at the helm but that he was privileged to be asked by the Communities Minister to sit on an emergency leadership group alongside Gerry McConville from the Falls Community Council in which they advised the Minister and her officials on government interventions to support those in need.
“Within West Belfast we are pretty well connected but what we need is investment. The difficulty that we have seen with the DUP walking out of the Executive Office means that we don’t have a budget agreed for the next three years.
“That makes community planning extremely difficult and we fear that the DUP pulling things down will make things unstable.”
The Upper Andersonstown Community Forum are also in the process of planning their first spring festival in March to tie in with Féile an Earraigh. With a wide variety of events including plans to plant over 4,000 square foot of wildflowers across Andersonstown.
Jim added: “Things at the moment are challenging but our organisation is dynamic and agile when it comes to the help and support needed within the community when it comes to what is coming ahead of us. If anyone needs any kind of support then give us a call and our team will be delighted to work with people and see what support we can offer them.”
