Neart Initiative
What is The Neart Initiative?
A Sustainable community with its own unique quality of life
The Neart Initiative is an umbrella term for the 10 year framework to create a sustainable community for future generations of islanders, for our island development, as suggested by the Sherkin Island Community through numerous community consultations.
The Neart Initiative has the goal of rejuvenating and supporting our island economy, creativity, education, green technologies, farming, fishing, biodiversity and all that a thriving, vibrant community needs to carry our islanders into the future of sustainable living.
Why use an umbrella term such as The Neart Intitiave?
It is a flexible term that allows for SIDS to submit to a wider range of funding and support programmes for all the island – for the development and expansion of a community spaces on Sherkin, to include a Neart Hub, for agricultural, fishing, enterprise, the arts, sustainable energy, biodiversity and food sectors. For community, education and Covid pandemic supports. Anything that can support development on the island.
Neart is the Irish word for “strength”.
Through the Neart Initiative, Sherkin Island Development Society (SIDS) is shaping a thoughtful 10-year vision to sustain a thriving island future, nurturing arts, education and community life while honouring the generations who came before, to ensure that the life of Sherkin Island community continues and evolves, as a sustainable community with its unique quality of life, for future generations of Islanders and visitors.
Neart Creative, Enterprise & Digital Hub
At the core of the Neart Initiative is a new building, a Hub, designed for our community.
A Project at a Meaningful Moment
- €1.9 million has been secured through Regional and Rural Development Funding (RRDF)
- Strong community leadership and national backing already achieved
A new home for the Neart Creative, Enterprise and Digital Hub, by the island community, for the island community.
A new, sustainable building custom designed to fit our island, a building sitting on on the shores of Cuinne Harbour, a home for our healthcare and education, our economic growth, our heritage, music, storytelling and collaboration in a setting shaped by memory as much as by landscape.
It is the engine of our sustainable island future.
Sherkin Island Development Society, as a not for profit community organisation, must fundraise €120,000 to match the public funding of €1.9m from the (RRDF) Regional and Rural Development Funding provided towards this project.
We are so close – with €120,000 in fundraising remaining to complete the project.
SHERKIN ISLAND NEEDS SUPPORT FROM ALL OUR FRIENDS TO ACHIEVE THE NEART INITIATIVE – YOU CAN BE PART OF THE JOURNEY
School Building Update
While this delay is outside of our control, please be reassured that we are continuing to work tirelessly and persistently to bring this matter to a resolution.