Euro funding secures victims' groups' projects

LAUNCH: Michael Culbert, Coiste; Jennifer McCann Sinn Féin; Tom Holland, Ardoyne Commemoration Project; Bertha MacDougall, Victims Commissioner; Ciaran Hartley and Eileen Woods, VAST and Mike Nesbitt, Victims Commissioner

THE Falls Road-based Victims And Survivors Trust (VAST), which recently secured European funding, is to develop new projects aimed at the needs of its members. The programme of events is to begin in autumn 2009 and last until 2011.
Announcing news of the funding, on Friday 30 October, Trust Co-ordinator Fiona Murphy said the new funds mean that the organisation can plan ahead and build a two-year programme that will benefit the group and its members.
Sinn Féin’s Francie Molloy, the party’s spokesperson on victims’ issues, and west Belfast Assembly member Jennifer McCann attended the launch.
Speaking to An Phoblacht after the event, Francie Molloy praised the work of  VAST:
“There has been much debate about the definition of victims. VAST promotes an inclusive definition and the right of people to define it for themselves. The fact that they resist the notion of a hierarchy of victims is commendable.”