Rural Action Launches New Awards Scheme

To mark their third birthday, Rural Action will celebrate with the launch of the Rural Action Awards Scheme, aimed at supporting rural communities celebrate their own achievements.

The scheme is designed to support up to 12 volunteer led community action projects. Rural community-based organisations in Northern Ireland, or the border region of Ireland will have the opportunity to apply for and be in with a chance of securing £1000 or €1000 towards their project.

The scheme is open to constituted rural community-based organisations including charities, not for profit community groups, sporting and cultural organisations, heritage groups, Parent Teacher Associations, youth groups/clubs and social enterprises. The scheme seeks to support practical, tangible and timebound projects where the project must complete within 12 weeks.

Teresa Canavan, Rural Action Chief Executive, explained, “As we celebrated our third birthday this year and also secured charitable status, we were keen to give something back to rural communities and hence we are delighted to announce the launch of the Rural Action Awards Scheme for 2022/2023.”

“We realise communities have faced and are facing many challenges and we hope this scheme in some small way offers encouragement to celebrate community activity. We are not prescriptive of the type of project we will support. The only stipulation we have is that the project is volunteer led and supports wider community engagement and celebration.”

“Groups wishing to enter must complete a simple online form available at www.ruralaction.co. The successful groups will then be contacted and following a simple verification process, can avail of the £1000/€1000 to use for their community action project. Full terms and conditions are available on our website.”

“We wish the best of luck to all those groups that enter, and we look forward to sharing their stories.”