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An Tobar Wellness Centre and Social Farm CIC

An Tobar Wellness Centre and Social Farm is based in South Armagh and its aims are to inspire people to connect with each other and grow communities together. They offer nature-based activities to individuals and groups to improve health and wellbeing within the community.

Mentor: Bolster Community

The Elevate project aimed to look at two key areas – Programme Development (Youth and Mental Health) and Organisational Development (Volunteer Team Development).

With the Mentor’s support, An Tobar worked with local partners - The Rural Health Partnership and SOPYC Youth Club, Crossmaglen. They designed a strategic action plan, identifying how best to develop their role in offering mental health support for young people. They explored how to support other organisations and work collaboratively to share expertise helping them to better understand health inequalities and focus actions accordingly. They engaged with young people to codesign and coproduce this action plan for mental health support for this rural community which included plans of how to reinstate the much-needed Cara Café in South Armagh.

An Tobar developed a Volunteering Management Plan and reviewed and updated their Volunteering Policy and Training Plan. They delivered a community event highlighting the volunteering opportunities available targeting a diverse range of groups. They developed an evidence base, engaging directly with community to gather lived experience of health inequalities and identifying how to address needs.

Impact

This Elevate project built on their previous Elevate project to continue development of a focused and up to date action plan for mental health support for young people in South Armagh area.

The support from the Elevate programme really helped build the organisation’s social capacity and assisted in the development of their Strategic Plan and direction. The project also helped to raise awareness of An Tobar in the community, making the organisation more visible. With support from the mentor, many opportunities for partnership working were created and existing partnerships strengthened and consolidated.

The Elevate project highlighted needs of young people and LGBTQI+ community and the disproportionate negative impact of health inequalities they suffer in what is already a deprived area. Young people themselves have built strong social connections/friendships, developing their confidence, skills and knowledge, improving their individual capacity to make positive changes in health and wellbeing. Local people had more opportunities to engage with An Tobar, as volunteers and/or participants and to share their lived experience of health inequalities, leading to better focused action to address needs.

“The Elevate Programme provided vital support, from training to enhance our knowledge, skills and awareness around health inequalities, to mentoring which helped us develop new and existing partnerships with other community organisations and stakeholders, increasing community engagement and provision of much-needed support within our community.”

Kathleen Finnegan, An Tobar