Peter McVerry Trust, the national housing and homeless charity, has been awarded a grant of €80,000 by the Rural Recovery Fund to deliver a project called ‘Activation First’ in the Galway/Mayo region.

The Rural Recovery Fund is a one year, €600,000 fund created by Rethink Ireland with support from Google.org and the Department of Rural and Community Development.

Activation First will build on the principles of Housing First by supporting participants to become more integrated in their communities through access to employment opportunities. The project will link with organisations providing further education and training and employment supports in Galway and Mayo in order to deliver opportunities to participants in the region.

Activation First will focus not only on providing participants with support to enter the workplace, but will also engage employers to ensure long-term positive outcomes for both parties. The grant will go towards funding two Social Care Workers based in Galway and Mayo to provide wraparound supports with a focus on employment, skills activation, education, and returning to the workforce.

The Activation First project will support the retention of tenancies in Galway and Mayo by allowing participants to become more integrated into their local communities. This is part of Peter McVerry Trust’s wider plan to increase service provision in the West of Ireland and the charity plan to open a Western Regional Office in Galway in the coming months.

The Rural Recovery Fund is a one year, €600,000 fund created by Rethink Ireland with support from Google.org and the Department of Rural and Community Development via the Dormant Accounts Fund. Through this Fund, Rethink Ireland will support six projects working with communities in rural Ireland that focus on recovery and resilience, as we emerge from the Covid-19 pandemic.