The HUBB Community Resource Centre has launched its community cohesion programme, FUSE aimed at encouraging partnership working, fostering positive community relations and developing local community capacity in North Belfast. The International Fund for Ireland through its Peace Impact Programme (PIP) supports the project. 

The official launch took place in Duncairn Community Centre on Wednesday night and saw a range of speakers coming together alongside the membership of the programme to discuss the main issues and the importance of reconciliation in the area.

The project has employed two full time staff who will work out of two bases, The HUBB just off the York Road area and the New Beginnings building on (lower) York Road. They are dealing with ongoing tensions and a high level of paramilitary activity in North Belfast.

This project will bring together representatives to develop a strategic plan, which will enable and facilitate a transformation process for those people involved or on the fringes of some of this gate-keeping, anti-social and criminal behaviour. This transformation will allow these people to start to understand the negative affects their behaviour has on communities, and set a path for them to disengage from this behaviour and have a more meaningful role within their areas.

Commenting at the launch, Paddy Harte, International Fund for Ireland, Board Member said:

“The main purpose of the Peace Impact Programme, which The HUBB is funded through, is to deliver real and positive community transformation in communities that have not previously participated in peace building and reconciliation activities.

“The areas of North Belfast that the FUSE project targets have suffered for too long with high levels of paramilitary activity, with relationships between the specific organisations particularly volatile. These organisations are recognising the need for community cohesion and that’s where this project came from”.

During the launch event, attendees heard from project co-ordinators who discussed the need for a programme that offered a real opportunity for community cohesion. Other speakers included the PSNI and Church representatives who discussed the importance of collaboration between all of the organisations to ensure the successful community led approach that this project has initiated. Neil Jarman from the Institute for Conflict Research at Queens University also spoke during the event.