Kilbeggan’s community hub bringing people together post-Covid

It’s all getting exciting in Kilbeggan: there’s a new Foróige club for young people getting set to launch; there’s also a new ‘Fáilte Isteach’ group that will help newcomers integrate and improve their fluency in English, and plans are afoot to create a First Responders team – and all is being facilitated by a local community hub group.

The community hub – which is based almost opposite the fire station – started just as Covid kicked off, and so is really only now beginning to act on all the plans and ambitions the founders had in mind, reveals Edwina Maloney, who became involved recently.

“It’s the brainchild of James Craig and the idea is to get as many people and different communities into the hub to use it,” says Edwina, who put out a call this week for volunteers to become involved in the conversational exchange that is to be a key part of the activities of Fáilte Isteach.

Already, there is a team of nine leaders in place to help run the Foróige club: they have had two training sessions to date and are establishing links with existing Foróige clubs in the area so that down the road inter-club activities can be arranged.

Edwina sees the Fáilte Isteach and Foróige as complimentary projects that will be invaluable in a town that has so many international residents – Brazilians and Poles most commonly and latterly, citizens of Ukraine:

“The starting process with the Foróige Club is we want to integrate young kids, but as part of it, that we can communicate with their parents,” says Edwina.

But it’s not just about language. As a mother herself, Edwina watched with concern what happened to young people when Covid kept them away from their friends.

“Since Covid, all the communication is done by mobile phones, so we want to set up a community for them and also make sure we integrate all. “The hub is set up for everybody,” Edwina continues.

“It’s a lovely building. We’ve got a pool table in there. We’ve also got an air hockey table that was donated to us; there are toilets and a small kitchen.

“It’s going to kind of be a cafe vibe on one side where the older community if they want to an come in and meet and greet and have a cup of tea or coffee just to socialise there. And then on the other side, the kids can come in and socialise as well.”

One of the focuses of the Foróige Club is to be mental health, so while for three weeks out of four they will do regular activities and interact and engage with other community organisations such as Tidy Towns or SWEETS, for the fourth week there may be something such as mindfulness training.

“We’ll have life skills – even just how to sew a button into your top – or we’d have somebody in to do confidence building.

“Foróige Ireland are good as well because they give you a lot of resources and training and also with Foróige, they encourage that the kids are the people who nearly run the show themselves.”

Fáilte Isteach is a national initiative launched by Third Age Ireland: “They provide training and all the booklets and all follow-up training to the people who volunteer and then it’s an hour every week of just conversational English. It’s not your formal English. It’s just conversational English.

“As soon as we get volunteers, they will be trained.

“Because a lot of the barrier to integration is language, we want to have it so that there is somewhere they can come and learn conversational English.”

Down the road, the group also wants to see a First Responders team established, and potentially a Women’s Shed as well.