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Eamonn O’Donnell: Reaching Communities in Northern Ireland is changing people’s lives
through the North West Taxi Proprietors project in a number of ways. We received half a million
pounds worth of funding for four years of programs. These programs are aimed at tackling
poverty right across, not only within the taxi industry but also within the community.
Gerry Hammill: Part of our Reaching Communities in Northern Ireland Grant, we have run a project
alongside other groups to help people be prepared for the event of someone committing suicide
on our local river of the Foyle .We’ve had quite a lot of this over the past ten years,
people getting in to difficulties and taxi drivers, being the taxi drivers a lot, especially
in the middle of the night at weekends they are available on the scene, quite often a
witness to it they can’t do anything. It’s one of the quickest tidal rivers in Europe,
so he can’t get in. We researched a project we found the best system that we thought was
readily available to drivers, because of its size, because of the ease training in it,
it’s used by the US Coast Guard.
What we find by drawing volunteers onto a number of the schemes that we run and not
just the Suicidal Awareness or the Assist is that it encourages interaction between
different groups within the community. We bring people from both sides of eth divide
here under the training we do, it encourages them to go onto other aspects of the stuff
that we do and education in the health side of it. So, when somebody steps on and does
a very small thing like an hour or two’s training with us for suicide awareness and
has the pack in the car they go through, I think they go through, for different reasons,
a change in the way that they interact both the community sector; self-employed people
are very, very much on their own especially a taxi driver who’s in the vehicle on his
own and doesn’t have any interaction with the rest of the community except when they’re
sitting in this vehicle. It encourages them to get out of that, to get into the other
aspects of life and I think it develops them as people and it helps the whole community
in that way.
Male Speaker 1: North West Taxi Proprietors on this part of the health program here in
Templemore Sports Complex under the Reaching Communities in Northern Ireland part of our
project which is from the Big Lottery Fund. North West Taxi Proprietors actually involve
a good number of taxi drivers within this but we have also evolved out and service the
full community here and we have a number of men and women involved in both these projects.
When they come down here they are involved in a range of activities, from jump classes,
band classes, soccer classes and boxer size, we also have personal programs drawn out for
them.
Tommy McCallion: Obviously through the North West Taxi Proprietors, the funding which allows men the cost is no longer an issue
to them. What we have is that we are able to provide facilitators that train us, we’re
able to provide access to a fantastic time here at the Templemore Sports Complex and
what that does, it creates the right environment to deal with the group of people that we have
and I think what you’ve seen today is that we now have positive role models within the
taxi industry. You have people who would not normally come to a program like this and I
think what we offer them is that security. You have trainers so you get to know them
personally, so it’s not just about exercise you try make people’s lifestyle, know what
is affecting them, how does the industry affect them? There are just things going on at home,
things that we can work with and what you find is that the exercise, it’s almost a
relief from their day to day chores, it’s run at a time that suits them when it’s
quite quiet in terms of their normal day to day run. So what we do then is we just support
them through that, we make the exercise enjoyable, we make it varied we make it innovative and
I think what our results has shown is that they are enjoying it first and foremost. They
are making the changes, they are being supported and they’re actually seeing changes they
made themselves and I think that encourages them, they keep it going and what we’re
finding out is that they will stay the six months and we have people knowing that we’re
working with for over four years in the Taxi Proprietors and that wouldn’t have been
possible if they hadn’t BIG Lottery fund them.
Male Speaker 1: We would see a massive change in a number of families who have been able
to get on the mainstream economy and been able to set them... their lives in motion
and actually improve their whole lifestyle through that. So it is about lifestyle, it
is about legacy and it is about leaving a lasting impact.