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Hawk’s Well Awarded Human Rights and Equality Grant Scheme

A group photograph of participants of the SHINE acting programme.

The Hawk's Well Theatre are delighted to announce that they have been awarded funding from Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission for their new SHINE: Music participation programme.

They partnered with Sligo/Leitrim Community Inclusion Services, National Learning Network and ThisAbility for the funding application.

The Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission Act 2014 gives the Commission powers to provide grant funding to bodies to carry out certain activities to promote human rights and equality in Ireland. The themes of this year’s funding are informed by the priorities set out in the Commission’s Strategy Statement 2022-2024.
30 organisations have been awarded a total of €400,000 in funding for projects under the Human Rights and Equality Grants Scheme 2023. The successful projects focus on advancing access to justice and rights and promoting the eradication of ableism, ageism, racism, sexism, homophobia and transphobia.

This year, projects were awarded for general grants up to €20,000 and for smaller grants up to €6,000. The scheme was open to civil society organisations working to promote human rights and equality and trade unions, as well as groups representing communities addressing poverty and social exclusion or communities of interest protected under the 9 equality grounds.

In January 2023 the Hawk’s Well Theatre started the SHINE programme; a weekly immersive drama workshop for a group of young people with intellectual disabilities. This succeeded in achieving greater equality of accessibility by supporting people with intellectual disabilities to access theatre as participants.

The project title this year is SHINE: Music participation programme for people with Intellectual Disabilities.

The aim of the project, informed by input from people with intellectual disabilities, is to eradicate ableism and ageism by integrating disability accessibility into the theatre’s approach and programme. This will involve training musicians and music facilitators to understand and engage with diverse audiences, leading to a series of music workshops for older people with intellectual disabilities. This project will add to a whole of organization approach to increase diversity at the theatre, strengthened community partnership, and trained musicians and music facilitators to work in this field.