Connected Communities is a project put forward by the South-East
Regional Authority (SERA) to help communities in the region to benefit
from advances in information and communication technology. Clubs
and voluntary groups in 5 pilot rural communities are finding ways
to reduce costs and improve communication amongst members. Mobile
messaging has been set up to alert members, involve supporters and
reduce the costs and personal time needed to run a club or voluntary
group.
Online self-publishing services are being used to record the heritage
of the community including libraries of old photographs and digitally
recorded oral histories. All of these are being combined to help
manage community events and projects, creating greater awareness
and involving more people from inside and outside the communities.
The technologies are being provided by Community Publishing Ltd
through their Claneire.com service.
The pilot project is being run by the South
East Regional Authority and is part funded by the European
Commission through the Southern
and Eastern Regional Assembly Innovative Actions Programme.
Frank McCarthy, SERA project manager, said that the
“Connected Communities project will provide the access
and support needed to help rural groups, clubs and businesses to
use these new technologies. The project will last approximately
18 months and will be piloted in five communities in the South East,
Bagenalstown
in Carlow, Cahir
in Tipperary, DFBA
in Waterford, Freshford
in Killkenny and Raheen
in Wexford. This project will focus on delivering benefits to a
cross-section of groups in the selected pilot communities. We will
give particular attention to disadvantaged groups where the possible
benefits to be gained are greatest.”
The objective of the project is to make communication technologies
relevant to rural communities, starting by addressing the cost and
time constraints in running groups and working towards delivering
more sophisticated broad-band based services.
More information about the project and links to the active communities
can be found at www.seiss.ie.
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