 Hold on a second, we'll save that for a little later on, Sean Colvin. Anyhow, what I've talked now about something that is happening next week, it's Social Inclusion Week, I touched on this yesterday on the show, but I'm talking about a couple of guests now, we're going to flesh it out a little bit more and it's going to be launched this Saturday by Cahir Look, Councillor Lee and Blaney and in Greenham Theatre Saturday afternoon, half-past one is the launch and then followed by a big festival of colour hosted by the letter Kenny Indian community. But Mary Clyde, who's coordinator of I don't think all the public participation network and the artistic director with Yellowwood Arts and a programs manager with the Waterside Theatre, Andrew McNulty have joined me in the studio and good afternoon to you both. Good afternoon. Hi John. Especially you Andrew, scenes were the movies together many, many years ago. We were indeed. Just to explain, it was a scene, well we actually weren't, we were filmed in the scene and we never even made the funny start again. I know it was terrible, I had all my family sitting around as well, John, to watch the film, yeah, and total disappointment when I couldn't be seen. I'm coming up now and no worries, puff of smoke, that was it. Secret of Rowan Anish. Amira, you said, oh fair, is that going to go? Did you actually, you've seen it? I saw it in Lifford cinema many moons ago. It's sitting there on your own watching it. Well not on this big crowd there now. All your fans were there waiting to see it, very, very disappointed that you went. I can imagine, yeah. Anyhow, back to the present and back to Social Inclusion Week. An overview of this, explain what's, what is the purpose of it. So the idea behind Social Inclusion Week is to reach out to communities, maybe living in disadvantage or not being able to participate in usual activities. And this is a way of, in particular, working from the Public Participation Network, which is kind of a community and voluntary social inclusion, an environmental body that reaches out into communities, works with community groups, and gives community groups and individuals the opportunity to represent themselves on public committees and stuff like that to as well of interest. So what Mary and myself have done was we came together and Mary came up with a timetable and said, let's try and fill this now, see what we can do, see how we can reach into those different communities. Well, you certainly have filled it. Now I misunderstood this yesterday. I thought it was reaching out to newly arrived communities and not necessarily, not that anybody's excluded as such. In fact, it's the opposite, but there's not that particular focus. And Mary, you have filled the programme, both and beyond. Yeah, yeah. I suppose maybe backtracking during COVID, we did an awful lot of online activities and there's quite a few of these now incorporated into this as well, because people have been coming back and saying, oh, what about the yoga? What about the mindfulness? So doing the well-being as well, because I think that's really important because there's still issues, a lot of issues. So I was just going to ask you that. Things are still not 100 percent. They're still not back to where it is. Absolutely not. And we have found up with a lot of our groups when we're reaching out to them that the numbers have depleted. A lot of people just aren't coming out again or they're slower to come out again as well and engage just in person. For different reasons. Some people just get out of the habit of going out. Now you have to be encouraged and coaxed. Yeah, to come back again, you know. And by social inclusion, we can initiatives like this, it gives us the opportunity to provide a platform once again for them to come out, to mix and hopefully provide some kind of activities that they can all get around and it will be of interest to you as well. Well, there's plenty of activities here and they're all very accessible and it's important to stress that they're all free. Absolutely. So let's zip through a few of them. And it starts actually tomorrow really with First Aid and CPR out to Mannequinningham. But on then to the launch, which is on Saturday. And after that launch then there's a festival of colour and that's hosted by Indian community. That's a family event. But from there on, let's say Sunday, for instance, in the town park in Lattacanny. We'll do an over and back here. Wherever you've organised an event or you're over familiar with it, then step in. So I'm not too sure what you're supposed to do. So the sports partnership are actually having a less family event in the park on Sunday too as well. So that's from 10 o'clock until 2 o'clock. Monday then there's, I'll just stay with you Andrew for this, a Donegal community garden. This looks to be a big event because it's a gathering of groups all around the county and that's going to be at the vestry in Nettocanny. That's right, yeah. That's the Donegal community garden network. They're the spring gathering event. So community groups will be invited to a networking morning there. And we know there's scattered all around the county and it's a great initiative. We're just a chance to come together, talk, meet, plan. That'd be great. That'd be absolutely. And that network already exists as well and it's very well supported. And one of our own secretariat members, Joanne Butler, will actually be heavily involved in that too as well. So she'll be looking and leading out on that too as well. Okay, I'm married to Monday and there's, well there's yoga and there's music and there's a workshop, a couple of those online. Yeah, yeah. The Zoom is our first one and this healing flow yoga Jacqueline Toner from Nettocanny and she did a load of these with us previously and she's very, very good, excellent. Okay. So it's nice for people to get, people to get involved in that as well. You know, it's online and it suits all abilities. So anybody can take, you know, it's chair yoga. So anybody can take part in it. But it's really, really good. Yeah. And it's, yeah. Andrew, sorry. The music, yep. That's going into the nursing homes and stuff like that. That's on a Monday too as well. That's with two great guys. That's Jack McHale and Miles McIver. And this is following on from my work. It's great crossover work that I have in Derry too as well. These two guys, we devised a project where they would go into residential care settings and they would work with older people in those settings and they actually created a brand new piece of music into a CD. So this is going to be like a mini version of that where they're going to go in and they're going to play a few tunes and they're going to try and just come up with a wee song by the end of the day and rattle that out then too as well. So it's a great idea. Now, on Tuesday, there's a walkability audit in the Melton. What's that Mary? It's ourselves with the Donegal County Council Access, Officer of Trudy O'Reilly. And we've done these in a few different towns that have regeneration going on and we take people with different levels of disabilities and, you know, older people and children and buggies and we go around towns and walk and we look at the issues that are there and then we send the report to, you know, the regeneration team to look at the issues, you know, because there are a lot of issues in town. And I hope that, yeah, there's money there to do things. So hopefully it'll impact then on that. And Andrew, there's an art class on Tuesday as well. This is a very special art class. I work with a group called Different Strokes for Different Folks, who have now evolved into Yellowwood Arts. Yellowwood Arts are an arts and health group. So what it does by arts and health, there's many different types of arts, there's arts and disability, there's traditional arts, take a listen at the theatre or in a gallery, arts and health is where we pair up a professional artist and the person, the service user themselves too as well. And they create art, they co-design, co-create art. And the idea came about when I was working with a great guy, Larry Masterson. And he also has an event on Tuesday that I better mention as well, Joe. It's aphasia conversation group. And that is for people with aphasia. It's also called aphasia cafe. And Larry will be heading that along with a speech in language therapist too as well. And that's to provide a facility for those with aphasia because it's quite a challenging, I suppose, thing to have in aphasia because it affects your speech and your language. This provides a very safe environment, led by Larry and Louise, where they can come in on Tuesday and that is in the central library at 11am. I could see a point in there. But the art class, if I can scoot back to that very quickly, so that came out of Yellowwood Arts and Arts and Health. But it is going to be led by Fiona McGee. Fiona McGee herself had a stroke there a few years back and she was a teacher in Little Angels here and she was unable to carry on her career. But after getting involved with a few of the different projects, and I'll speak about one of those that's happened on Thursday, after getting involved in a few of those Arts and Health projects, she's built up the confidence now to take on a class for herself. So what about our opportunity then Social Inclusion Week to have an Arts and Health project led by the artist herself, Fiona. And she's terrific. She's great. She this all evolved and Mary made mention of it earlier too as well from COVID and online where everything was pushed online. And Fiona actually, we were running a series of classes with stroke and brain injury survivors online. And they were general drama based. But Fiona actually said that she would do an art one one night and we all drew Donald Duck and it was fantastic. And I was delighted with myself. It was really good, really, really good. Over the course of the week, there's a focus on cybercrime awareness and this being highlighted at most of the events. And on Wednesday, for instance, there's something titled fraud fighters and data heroes workshop. So that ties in with that theme. Yep. Yeah. It's all to do with scams and frauds, which everybody's just all too well. Not that we're over familiar with them, but we're aware. Yeah. And I think it's Eve Kern that's doing these for us. And I think just looking at social platforms, how our information is getting out there, where people getting this information from and looking on how to try and, you know, just some tips and how to improve our own security at work and at home. And that's online. That's online. Yep. That's online as well. Yeah. And also on Wednesday, there's some mindfulness. Yep. That's Mary Cara from Angels Cove. And again, you know, she does loads and loads of things, just breathing techniques, anxiety tips and hints on how to deal with life really, you know, and it's really, really good. Really. Yeah. She's brilliant. And Andrea, then on Thursday in the Radisson Blue Hotel, there is, again, Yellowwood's art involved in a special presentation or a special Yeah. This is a great partnership. And many thanks to Mary for jumping in behind this, too, as well. And this was an international project originally, Brainwaves. And it involved the group that had mentioned before, different strokes for different folks. Those that survived stroke. It involved the Playhouse in Derry. It involved Kings College in London and Rosetta Life and Wall to Wall in Derry, too, as well. So it was a great project. It was an international study. And we will be presenting that film. We had talked about films earlier, John. Yes. I'm glad to see there's a film involved. We'll be presenting that showcase on Thursday along with then I'll give a bit of background from the artist point of view. Larry, who had mentioned earlier, too, as well, Larry Masterson. He's a powerhouse. He will be talking about a participant point of view. And we will have the members of the group that was up to 13. I think it was involved in that. So they'll be there on the day to have a chat and all of that about the project and the process of getting involved in it. All right. Great project. And that will be in Radisson Blue Hotel. That's right. Yes. Okay. On Thursday. And on Friday, Mary, there's a social media workshop again. I presume they're touching on the theme of cybercrime. I think I'm mostly looking at the different social media platforms and just a workshop and showing people how to use them. You know, it's Evelyn McGlynn that does it. And, you know, it's really, really easy, gone friendly kind of course for people get involved. Maybe you're not too familiar with social media and want to learn, you know, how to use it and what's there. And on Saturday then, it finishes up again with our class with Fiona. And we are actually reaching out to new communities there too as well, John. You've mentioned that earlier. So we will be working with Ukrainian refugees on that program in Kodaf. They're based there. And that's through the secretariat and the public participation network that we work on. So it's through that that we got a connection that identified that there may be possibly a need there to work and to provide the classes out there for them too, as well. So it's really good. Jam packed. That's only a snapshot. I know we've touched on, well, we've mentioned a lot of items there, but there's more besides. There's more events on. One in particular that I just want to mention on Wednesday, the 28th at 10 o'clock and the clanry is the Old Reperson's Council, AGM. And they are looking for new participants and they haven't had an AGM for a few years. So really it's from over 55s, you know, onwards. So that wouldn't include any of us. But they're looking for new people, you know, and they're trying to widen that network. So they have an Old Reperson's Council and then they will have an Old Reperson's Executive Committee. So they're looking for new people. And anybody, loads of people have retired in the last few years that maybe are looking for something to do. And this will be a great opportunity. And they've loads of ideas and they do loads of things. So really important that people come out. Everybody's invited to it at 10 o'clock on the clanry on Wednesday. Yeah. All right, brilliant. And more information online if you want. Donegalcoco.ie. It's on all week. It starts, well, it starts really tomorrow, continues through then until Saturday week. And everything is free. Everything. That's right, Joe. Ryan Andrew, thank you very much. Thank you very much. Thanks very much for having us. Thank you.