Community Mapping of Cork City and Environs

BITCI News - Apr 29, 2015

Business in the Community Ireland has long recognised the business case for strategic community involvement. As our member companies strategise their approaches to community engagement we recognised the benefits of mapping social issues with view to identifying key areas where business could have clear impacts. As a result, in 2014, we successfully sought funding from the Department of Environment, Community & Local Government to conduct a comprehensive Community Mapping exercise in five areas across Ireland.

corkCommunity mapping is an approach that helps a community get directly involved in their own development. Mapping builds an accurate knowledge of what a community actually looks like e.g. housing, industry, schools, community centres etc.  The process enables communities to map details of what challenges and problems they face and to begin to look for and to implement solutions through multi-stakeholder engagement.

In the latter half of 2014 we started a Community Mapping for Dublin 1. Resulting from this exercise we are now working with 16 of our member companies to investigate the scope for collaborative action to tackle issues of high unemployment in the inner city of Dublin.

In parallel, we have now started the Community Mapping of Cork City and Environs. In Cork City, the secondary research has been completed and we are currently in the process of the primary research stage. Already we have carried out focus groups with representatives from Community and Voluntary groups in Cork along with some face to face interviews in April. There are more interviews and research sessions scheduled over the next few weeks. If you are a stakeholder in Cork and would like to participate in the research please do so by completing our online survey here https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/885JFQG

Once the research is complete and we have engaged with a wide variety of stakeholders, a report of needs will be drafted and presented to the member companies in the area. Similar to Dublin 1, we are hopeful of engaging a large percentage of our member companies in Cork to commit to work collaboratively to tackle key social issues.

For further information on this initiative contact Community Outreach Executive Shane Mulchrone smulchrone@bitc.ie