News & Events

Independent Living Movement Ireland (ILMI) are inviting people to check out their upcoming webinar “Everything you wanted to know about disability but were afraid to ask!” which will take place via Zoom on Wednesday 5th May 3pm.

May 5th was designated by the European Network on Independent Living as European Day on Independent Living and this event is part of ILMI’s celebration of this date.

The webinar will be a unique opportunity for people to listen and informally learn about the social model of disability an how that informs the United Nations Convention on the Rights of People with Disabilities (UNCRPD). Disabled activists will discuss the use of language and the role of Disabled Person’s Organisations (DPOs) and how the social model of disability can inform the implementation of the CRPD.

The ILMI are happy to be joined by Minister of State Department of Children, Disability, Equality and Integration with responsibility for Disability Anne Rabbitte TD who will open the webinar. Meanwhile. MC for the webinar will be Peter Kearns and will feature a short input from special guest Speaker, Maggie Cameron who is a freelance Disability Equality & Diversity Trainer with experience of developing Disabled Persons Organisations in Scotland.

This webinar is a unique opportunity for anyone who wants to listen directly to disabled activists and hear about the issues facing disabled people through an equality and human rights lens. Anyone with an interest in equality, human rights, community development, policy development and building an inclusive Ireland should attend to begin to explore how we collectively need to think about disability in Ireland.

They are inviting:

• Politicians,
• Policy makers,
• Public servants,
• Community Development Organisations,
• Trade unions,
• Equality and human rights organisations
• Local Area-based partnerships
• Disabled activists

The ILMI are asking everyone to to circulate among your colleagues and contacts who you think would benefit from listening in. To attend, please register via info@ilmi.ie by Tuesday 4th May at 12 noon.

Smashing Times are delighted to present an online panel discussion ‘Creative Voices for Diverse Narratives’ as part of the Imagine Belfast Festival of Ideas and Politics.

The aim of the discussion is to support the telling of different stories and to build connections between diverse communities. Creative Voices for Diverse Narratives panel discussion takes place online on Monday 22 March 2021 at 7pm.

Panel members include Mary Moynihan, writer, director, theatre and film-maker and Artistic Director, Smashing Times; Noelle McAlinden, Visual Artist, Creative Advisor and Mental Health Campaigner, Curator and Cultural Broker; Richard Edgar, Author and Historian, Dave Randall, Musician and Writer and Dr Stephen Herron, Researcher, Academic, Cultural Anthropologist, and Community Relations Facilitator with Smashing Times.

This event is presented as part of Creative Connections; a cultural, arts-based project using creative processes of theatre, film and new digital technologies to promote reconciliation and positive community relations between people and traditions in Northern Ireland.

Imagine Belfast Festival of Ideas and Politics is a non-profit charity, with no full-time staff or offices. Each March they organise a week-long series of events aimed at engaging people in political/cultural discussion and debate in the broadest sense. The festival seeks to cover a wide spectrum of issues including, but certainly not limited to, mainstream political debate.

The speakers for the event are diverse and hugely exciting for all those lucky enough to get a ticket for the online event. Mary Moynihan is a writer, Director, Theatre and Film-Maker, Artistic Director of Smashing Times.

Elsewhere, there is Noelle Mc Alinden; a Visual Artist, Creative Advisor and Mental Health Campaigner, Curator and Cultural Broker. Impressively, Noelle is a Creative Adviser, Curator, Arts Educationalist, a former Head of Art and Design in a Post-Primary school and Senior Lecturer for Arts at Fermanagh College of Further Education.

The panel will also include Richard Edgar is an Author and Historian based in Portadown. He has a keen interest in Genealogy and is also a regular contributor to Portadown Heritage Tours. There will Dave Randall; a London based musician and writer. He has toured the world playing guitar for Faithless, Dido, Sinead O’Connor and many others, and has released his own critically acclaimed albums under the name Slovo.

Last but not least there will be Dr Stephen Herron, a Researcher, Academic, Cultural Anthropologist, and Community Relations Facilitator with Smashing Times International Centre for the Arts and Equality Dr Herron is one of just several military anthropologists in the UK and Ireland.

Participation in the festival is open to all and while the main debates will not be party-political, groups and individuals are encouraged to debate those ‘difficult’ and contentious issues that normally don’t air in public discussion.

Smashing Times are a resident Carmichael organisation. A theatre company which focuses on promoting diversity within Ireland, their work bands the world together in the most positive sense. You can keep up date with all their work here.

Finally, you can follow their social media accounts too; their Facebook here, and their Twitter here.

CE Positions

Carmichael sponsors a Community Employment Scheme (CE) programme providing quality part-time staff across a wide range of disciplines in nonprofit, community and sporting organisations.

To take up a position on this programme you must be eligible for Community Employment.

Please contact your local Intreo Office for more details.

Position: Grounds Person

Sponsor: Oliver Plunkett’s GAA Club
Sub-Sponsor: Carmichael
Location: St. Oliver Plunkett’s GAA Club, Navan Road, Dublin 7

Download General Operative Maintenance Job Description

Position: Sales Assistant

Sponsor: Carmichael
Sub-Sponsor: Capel St Shop, Caring and Sharing Association
Location: Capel St Shop, Dublin 1

Download Sales Assistant Job Description

Position: Receptionist

Sponsor: Carmichael
Sub-Sponsor: St. Finbarr’s GAA Club
Location: 7 Fassaugh Avenue, Cabra, Dublin 

Download Receptionist Job Description

Position: Support Worker

Sponsor: Carmichael
Sub Sponsor:        An Siol Community Development Project
Location: 7 Fassaugh Avenue, Cabra, Dublin 

Download Support Worker Job Description

Position: Housekeeping

Sponsor: Carmichael
Sub-Sponsor: Carmichael
Location: 4 Brunswick St N, Dublin, D07 RHA8

Download Housekeeping Job Description

Position: Caretaking Facilities

Sponsor: Carmichael
Sub-Sponsor: Carmichael
Location: 4 Brunswick St N, Dublin, D07 RHA8

Download Caretaking Facilities Job Description

Position: Trainee Childcare Worker

Sponsor: Carmichael
Sub-Sponsor: Little Stars Creche
Location: Blackhall Place, Dublin 7

Download Trainee Childcare Worker Job Description

ADHD Ireland continue to host events that inform and reassure all of those interested in the organisation and their work, with two upcoming webinars this month.

ADHD Ireland, the resident Carmichael organisation, regularly hold events with industry-experts and entertainment figures; always looking to inform and educate all interested parties. On February 25, there will be a webinar titled ‘The Human Microbiome and Neurodiversity’. While on March 4 there will be another webinar, this one titled ‘ADHD Parent Tips and Strategies’.

The February 25 event will be led by Alejandro Arias Vasquez, an expert in this specific area of the human microbiome in terms of ADHD. ADHD Ireland explain in the event biography that ‘this talk will be delivered by Alejandro Arias Vasquez’s one of the leading researchers in the area and his goal is to find genes involved in the variation of brain traits as well as for genes involved in the risk of complex neuropsychiatric diseases’.

The price of this event is just €5, a meagre figure for an event which will be so informative and helpful to so many. To book in for this event simply follow the instructions on this webpage. Following the February 25 event, there will be a parent-focused event on March 4 ‘ADHD Parents Tips and Strategies’.

This event will be headed by Una O’Brien, a speech and language therapist with ‘years of experience supporting families working through the challenges of ADHD’. Una will discuss a range of tips and useful strategies for managing your ADHD child’s routine at this uncertain time and will be open to taking questions either in advance via email to info@adhdireland.ie.

As a follow on from this webinar, Una will be facilitating two 5 week Parents Plus courses, one coming up in February and one in March. There is also a teen course coming up in April. Excitingly, this will be a completely free event, but to book in you must visit the page here. For further events, keep an eye on the ADHD Ireland website here.

ADHD host regular events, so to keep up, they have lots of social media pages to never miss an event. Find their Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter by clicking on the links.

The Irish Motor Neuron Disease Association are taking part in a sponsored silence campaign in a major fundraiser. The IMNDA are hoping to raise funds for their association and in turn, to increase motor neuron disease awareness throughout this campaign.

The resident Carmichael organisation, the IMNDA, will run the sponsored silence campaign which will use the hashtag #Voice4MND. The premise is supporters will stay silent for a total of 30 minutes, in order to experience what it is like to lose your voice like those with motor neuron disease.

The stats show that more than 80% of those living with MND will go on suffer some level of speech difficulty, with many losing their speech completely. Funds raised will go a long way to assist the IMNDA in their help and supports they provide for the MND community in Ireland.

For example, the IMNDA operate a free information phone line for those in need of information and general help with all that comes with an MND diagnosis. There is much more to their work however.

They employed four nurses, they have access to specialised equipment on a loan basis to all clients, once recommended by an occupational therapy etc. The money raised will really go to a multitude of vital services, not least bereavement counselling.

To date, the IMNDA have raised over €23,000, with 49 entrants having stayed silent for a total of 333 hours. As the IMNDA says, sometimes silence is louder than words. To keep informed with all the work of IMNDA you can check out their website here.

Finally, you can check out their social media too, their Twitter here, their Facebook here, and their YouTube here.

The next round of the Carmichael Mentor Programme is now open for applications. To date over 100 CEOs and managers of nonprofit organisations have benefited from the Carmichael Mentoring Programme.  We are now launching the next round of the mentoring scheme. 

Being the leader of an organisation can be tough anywhere but it is especially true in the nonprofit sector. The value of a mentor is having someone who can ask questions that clarify the situation and can help relieve the anxiety that builds when there is nowhere to articulate the doubts and concerns that the CEO may feel.

The purpose of the Carmichael Mentor scheme is to help meet with this need by using our panel of very experienced mentors who bring a range of skills, insights and backgrounds in a range of sector such as large corporate, SME, public sector and the nonprofit sector. Our mentors are volunteers and will provide confidential one-to-one advice and guidance.

This mentoring round is limited to 12 places and the service for successful applicants is free.

If you wish to apply, please visit https://www.carmichaelireland.ie/what-we-do/supports/mentoring/ for more information and the short application form. The form should be sent to Roisin@carmichaelireland.ie by close of business, Friday the 26^th of February.

Carmichael would also love to hear from people who may be interested in becoming a mentor for this programme.

The programme is only available to those working in the nonprofit sector.

Kindly supported by: 

Carmichael, in partnership with a number of Volunteer Centres and Waterford PPN, are organising a series of free workshops for non-profit organisations on “Developing your Annual Report”.

The aim of this practical hands-on workshop is to understand the preparation of the Annual Report from the perspective of the Board Members, Directors, Trustees.

Each workshop covers the basics of what is required in an annual report and then focuses on how to use the annual report as a way of showing the public, your members and funders how good your organisation is. The session will involve presentations and working in groups. These workshops are aimed at smaller charities (annual income of less than €250,000), particularly, at charities with income of less than €50,000.

The workshops are free thanks to the support of Community Foundation Ireland.

For more details and to register, contact the relevant Volunteer Centre or PPN.

The RCNI this week launched their Clinical Innovation Project; a multi-faceted project aimed at working with and for the training of counsellors and therapists in the area of sexual violence with Dr Jessica Taylor.

Working with the renounced Dr Jessica Taylor of Victim Focus, the January 18 event was delivered alongside a fully qualified ISL interpreter, and can be viewed in full here. The aforementioned Dr Taylor is a UK based psychologist, survivor and author of best-selling book Why Women Are Blamed For Everything. Furthermore, Dr Taylor has co—created a ‘pioneering new world-standard training and evidence gathering programme on counselling survivors of sexual violence in a post-pandemic world’.

With everything in the world, Covid-19 has had a devastating effect on how such organisations can help those in need. With that, the Programme, called Counselling Survivors On and Off-Line, has emerged from the experience of the Covid-19 lockdown when Rape Crisis Centres had to be vacated and when trauma counselling services had to move on-line.

The next phase in this project is a Q&A session for mental health professionals, which will be facilitated by RCNI’s own Dr Michelle Walsh, and Dr Jessica Taylor. This event is penned in for January 25 and will be free to register. This will take place over Zoom, and places can be booked here.

According to Cliona Saidlear, Director of RCNI, the change in the provision of RCC counselling services brought about by the Covid-19 lockdown impacted profoundly on the quality and nature of the deep intervention required for survivors, in ways that could not have been predicted and that are still not fully understood.

“While there is some optimism that a vaccine for Covid-19 may mean a return to some normality in 2021, the impact of Covid and dealing with the trauma of sexual violence within a global shared trauma of a pandemic is not going to disappear,” she said.

The latest RCNI press release reveals startling data. For example, RCNI data from the initial lockdown period in 2020 illustrated ‘significant increases and changes in survivor engagement. There was a 23% increase in contacts made to Rape Crisis Centre Helplines. Almost all of those already in counselling in the centres could switch to remote counselling but some could not’.

As mentioned in previous blog posts, the Rape Crisis Network of Ireland (RCNI) are a Carmichael resident organisation. You can read all about their fantastic work here. Finally, you can keep up to date with their social media accounts handily; their Facebook here, and their Twitter here.

Smashing Times are delighted to host two online workshops later this month, a perfect remedy for what can otherwise be a tough time for many.

On January 21 there will be an online workshop focusing on health and well-being, which will be completely free. Then on January 23 there will be an online workshop which looks at the marker of 99 years since the formation of the Irish state. Taking into account progress made, the workshop will delve into the inequalities which remain within society today. This course will cost €15, or €5 for a concession.

The January 21 course will be a great opportunity to ‘learn new skills’, according to Smashing Times. They say it will focus primarily on general theater games which are a great avenue to meet new people, improve language skills, and so much more.

This will be a two hour course held over zoom and no experience is necessary. For more information and to register for the event simply head over to their site here. On January 23 there will be a two hour course which delves deep into history, but always looking for a modern perspective.

As arbiters of equality for Irish society, Smashing Times will examine the formation of the Republic of Ireland from the key focus of equality; where it has been gained, and in some cases, not. Partnering with Dublin Castle, Heritage Services of the Office of Public Works for the event, there will be fun theater games will be used to help illustrate to people themes of equality of diversity.

Smashing Times would like to note that although there is a few for this event (€15/€5) exceptions can be made for those who cannot meet ticket cost. For information they should contact Niamh at info@smashingtimes.ie.

Smashing Times are a resident Carmichael organisation. A theater company which focuses on promoting diversity within Ireland, their work bands the world together in the most positive sense. You can keep up date with all their work here.

Finally, you can follow their social media accounts too; their Facebook here, and their Twitter here.