Mount Street Club Trust

📢 Join us for an inspiring Elevate Youth Arts Symposium! What to expect: a captivating Rising Voices performance, panel discussions and research presentations related to the performance! The performance explores the theme of power through dance, spoken word, and music created by young talented artists in our Youth Group in collaboration with artists Chriszine Backhouse and KELVIN AKPALOO. 🗓️ Date: Monday, 18 November 🕔 Time: 5pm - 7pm 📍 Location: Dublin City Centre 👉 Register now to save your spot! 🔗 https://lnkd.in/eAEjBzHt https://lnkd.in/euBZCPvK

Congratulations to all the team at Philanthropy Ireland on a wonderful symposium last week. We were very proud to see Hope & Ambition Phase One featured in the impact exhibition, pictured here with the brilliant Philanthropy Ireland CEO Eilis Murray. 👏 👏 #trustbasedphilanthropy

Heard about #TrustBasedPhilanthropy but not sure quite what it means in practice? This great article in Stanford Social Innovation Review describes how trust-based philanthropy plays out in the funder-grantee relationship between the Woodcock Foundation and the Southern Coalition for Social Justice. Trust-based philanthropy "is an approach that gives nonprofit leaders discretion and empowers them to pivot when the circumstances change, it allows funders to have a deeper understanding of organizational challenges and be responsive to them, and it enables leaders and their teams to spend less time on grants administration and more time on programs." We couldn't agree more. Our funding and development initiative, Hope & Ambition, has been putting trust-based philanthropy to the test in an Irish context since 2019. With phase two now underway and running till the end of 2027, we hope that sharing our experience, and the experiences of our partner organisations - Connections Arts Centre, Glencree Centre for Peace and Reconciliation, Intercultural Language Service, Irish Refugee Council and Rua Red - will help to influence a greater shift towards trust-based philanthropic practice in Ireland. Watch this space! https://lnkd.in/gbTfNv9u

Hope & Ambition is growing! We're thrilled to announce that Connections Arts Centre has joined Hope & Ambition Phase Two running from this year through to the end of 2027. Welcome on board to founder Miriam Spollen and all the team! 👏👏👏 Connections Arts Centre focuses on providing arts and community education for people with disabilities. The organisation’s work is inspired by the potential for arts to serve as a powerful tool for education and social inclusion, providing a platform for voices that are often unheard and talents that are frequently overlooked. The valuable experience and perspective that Connections Arts Centre offers will expand and enrich the understanding of social exclusion held within Hope & Ambition. The opportunity to support a social enterprise approach to sustaining creative practice within areas of activity such as the artists development collective was also of particular interest to the Trustees. We are all looking forward to seeing how this vibrant organisation continues to evolve through the development, peer and financial support that Hope & Ambition guarantees over four years. The five organisations now supported through Hope & Ambition are: Connections Arts Centre, Glencree Centre for Peace and Reconciliation, ILS-Dublin Intercultural Language Service-Dublin, Irish Refugee Council and Rua Red. 🙌 #trustbasedphilanthropy

Very warm and proud congratulations to our trustee Dr Thomas McCann who recently became one of the first Irish Traveller men to earn a PhD in Ireland when he was conferred with a Doctor of Social Science degree at Maynooth University. Back in 1985 Thomas was the University's first Traveller student, participating in the first Traveller education programme. You can watch a clip of Thomas on the RTÉ News and read about the five Traveller undergraduate students who also received their degrees alongside him on the RTÉ website: https://lnkd.in/gU-PYc3U Thomas joined the Trust in late 2023 and his contribution is invaluable as we continue to interrogate the experience and causes of marginalisation and social exclusion in Ireland for groups including Travellers, refugees, new communities and people with intellectual disabilities. A long-time Traveller activist, Thomas was a founding member in the 1980s of Minceir Misli, the first Traveller-only organisation, and has since represented the Traveller community at national and international level in a broad range of contexts, including on the National Traveller and Roma Inclusion Strategy Committee. Now practising as a counsellor and psychotherapist, Thomas established and continues to manage the Traveller Counselling Service, which provides culturally-appropriate counselling, psychotherapy and mental health support to members of the Traveller community. Thomas's doctoral thesis is entitled ‘The Road Less Travelled: Community Work and the Traveller Struggle for Human Rights in Ireland’. We’re looking forward to seeing where this new road takes him next!

The pictures tell the story! ❤️ Wonderful work from the team at Glencree that continues to develop and grow within Hope & Ambition.

We’re delighted to share Bernard Sweeney’s short film, 400 Years in September, created during his residency at Rua Red, supported through Hope & Ambition. The film expresses how Bernard’s identity as a Traveller has been shaped by his explorations into the Traveller community’s heritage and experience of its enduring challenges and hardships. It is brave and honest and captures the essence of an experience of being displaced within a prevailing culture. Watch the film on YouTube here: https://lnkd.in/e5j3__aN Bernard’s residency at Rua Red was facilitated through Hope & Ambition, the Trust’s funding and development initiative, in order to support Bernard to explore his ideas for TraVision, an independent Traveller-led media outlet that would showcase the unique aspects of Traveller histories, culture and lived experiences. The residency provided an opportunity for Bernard to build relationships and get access to additional contacts and resources, with a particular focus on production, film-making and editing. Bernard’s collaboration with Rua Red allowed the Trust to embed a Traveller perspective within Hope & Ambition and provoked vital learning on intercultural inclusion which continues to inform the initiative today. 400 Years in September was directed by Cashell Horgan and overseen by Edwin Forkin, both of Zanzibar Films, and supported by Maolíosa Boyle and Joyce Dunne at Rua Red. #TrustBasedPhilanthropy #IrishPhilanthropy #Inclusion #HopeandAmbition

Happy Refugee Week! Join us to show our local pride and practice solidarity. Together we can make Ireland a more welcoming and safe place for everyone. There are loads of practical ideas you can do to connect and show compassion. See card or visit the website.⬇️ 🔗 https://lght.ly/jjam450 #RefugeeWeekIreland #WithRefugees

In Cork tomorrow evening (15 June): The Irish Refugee Council Youth Group will be performing as part of Cork Midsummer Festival. Rising Voices will fuse storytelling, singing, dancing, theatre, and spoken word poetry to confront pressing societal issues with creativity and hope. Best of luck to all of the young performers! ⚡⚡⚡https://lnkd.in/e5cc_cPM

"As we reflect back on the first four years of Hope & Ambition and prepare to embark on the next four-year funding cycle, we are emboldened in our belief that those brave organisations seeking to address issues of exclusion and marginalisation in our society need sustained, secure and flexible long-term support." - The Trustees of the Mount Street Club Trust We are very pleased to share the End-of-Year Narratives for Hope & Ambition June 2022-December 2023 in which our partner organisations, Glencree Centre for Peace and Reconciliation, ILS-Dublin Intercultural Language Service-Dublin, Irish Refugee Council and Rua Red, reflect on the work undertaken during that period. The report also includes reflections on the narratives from the Trustees and their advisor Dr Liz Hayes who guides Hope & Ambition. #TrustBasedPhilanthropy #IrishPhilanthropy #Inclusion #HopeandAmbition