Traveller"s group project for Mullingar
The newly set up Westmeath Traveller"s Project is already making headway in Athlone and is hoping that the pilot projects established there can be repeated in Mullingar.Elaine Delaney and Aishling Bulger are pushing forward with their 'needs based' projects.They are hoping that they can up skill travellers in Mullingar so that they can put forward representatives from the community to decision making bodies.'For example we would be pushing to get someone from the traveller community on to the Primary Health Forum in Westmeath because there is no representation there at the moment,' said Elaine.'We have only just set up here and we are now based at an office in Presentation House when we are in Mullingar but we have already had some enquiries from travellers so I am hoping that word is getting out.'Aishling and Elaine are eager to stress that the remit of the project is to help people to help themselves as well as building a sense of community as seen by the Women"s Centre, set up by the project, at Blackberry Lane in Athlone.'A woman"s centre is something that we will be considering repeating in Mullingar but only if that is what people want. At the minute we are running a computer course from there which is proving to be very popular and again that is something that we can and will repeat in Mullingar if that is what people want to have.'The inquiries that we get are so broad though they can range from housing to health, people wanting information about immunisations for children, how to get registered for a GP or even about the effects of drug use.'What we are aiming to do at the minute is to find out what the community in Mullingar wants and we can take it from there.'I am also working on a research project, the aim of which is to find out things like the life expectancy of travellers as no one has any statistics on that as yet.'Basically we are still finding our feet but we are hoping that things will start to move quite quickly.'The Westmeath Traveller"s Group can be contacted by email on westmeathtravellerproject@gmail.com or on 0906494555.