Cross-Border: enACTing cooperation (CBenACT)

Funded by the International Fund for Ireland’s Communities in Partnership Programme (£104,979), Cross-Border: enACTing cooperation (CBenACT) is a pilot cross-border collaboration between the Centre for Cross Border Studies, Creative Spark (Dundalk) and Women’s Tec (Newry). Its core objectives are: 

• the strengthening of the capacity to engage in progressive and sustainable cross-border cooperation through the provision of the specific skills necessary to deliver cross-border projects of meaningful benefit for communities on both sides of the border; 
• the embedding of an approach to cross-border cooperation that sees it as central to organisations’ work rather than as peripheral to their core missions; and 
• increasing mutual understanding and awareness of issues and challenges affecting communities on both sides of the border, particularly those with the potential to impact on cross-border relations and mobility. 

This is an 18-month project, made possible by IFI, and will also lead to the design and initial implementation of a cross-border collaboration between Creative Spark and Women’s Tec, with a focus on the cross-border sharing of resources and skills to deliver training for women in non-traditional skills (e.g. plumbing, carpentry, tiling, electrics), women in STEM/STEAM, as well as climate action as an area for community capacity-building. It will also produce an online repository of training material for the development of cross-border cooperation projects that will be available on the CCBS website for use by other organisations beyond the lifetime of this project.