St Maria Goretti Nursery School wins Bryson Recycling Award

There was well-deserved recognition for some local community groups, organisations and schools at the West Belfast Partnership Board’s 16th Community Environment Awards. The awards are held each year to celebrate those who have worked to improve, protect and enhance the environment in West Belfast.

This year’s awards ceremony took place at the Falls Park Pavilion on Tuesday 16th October, and was very well attended by groups and individuals across the community, voluntary and education sector.  Mayor of Belfast, Deirdre Hargey, who was the main speaker at the event, addressed a large audience and presented certificates and awards to environmental projects from across the west of the city.  She praised those present for their great efforts in helping to improve the quality of the environment in West Belfast.

This year, there were five award categories:

Translink Environment Award;

Apex Public Art Award;

Ark Education Award;

Bryson Recycling Award;

And Housing Executive Community Award.

This year’s winners are as follows:

Translink Environment Award:

The Translink Environment Award was presented to the Belle Black Community Centre for their Grosvenor Garden. The project encompasses a community garden area, allotment site with extensive raised beds, foliage and a substantial poly tunnel and storage/work zone.

Apex Public Art Award:

Springhill Residents Association picked up the Apex Public Art Award for their local Digital Art Project. They involved many local people and youth groups in digital workshops and developed a project to clean up community walls and stop graffiti by using art and digital art storyboards to decorate the walls.

Ark Education Award:

St Gerard’s School were awarded the Ark Education Award for their continued work with Belfast City Council. During this time, they took part in tree planting, removal of graffiti, litter lifts, parks management and graveyard maintenance.  Belfast City Council benefitted from the children’s input and the students have learned many skills along the way.

Bryson Recycling Award:

The recipients of Bryson Recycling award are St Maria Goretti Nursery School for their school Gardening Club. The aim of their project is to encourage children to enhance the quality of their environment to make their school and community better places to work and play. This involves weeding gardens, planting flowers & hanging baskets and tending our herb garden & vegetable patch.  The school held a litter pick and invited the council to talk about the benefits of recycling in school and at home.

Housing Executive Community Award:

CBS, Glen Road received the Housing Executive Community Award for their CPR & Defibrillator Training. In partnership with Defibs4Kids the school has endeavoured to train all its pupils in how to perform CPR and use a defibrillator in an emergency.  They are the first school in the North to train all of its pupils in how to use these skills.  This will help to make our communities safer with young people having these skills and being able to act in any kind of an emergency.

Renee Crawford, Chair of the West Belfast Partnership Environment Sub Group, said of the Awards:

“I would like to thank all the community groups, organisations and schools who submitted an application for this year’s Community Environment Awards. All of the projects were outstanding and are to be commended; it was a hard task indeed to single out just five projects for an award. However, regardless of whether you are an overall winner today or not, each group is to be awarded a certificate in recognition of the fantastic work that you do daily in your communities”

Mayor of Belfast, Deirdre Hargey, said at the awards:

“I would like to praise all of this year’s applicants for their enthusiasm, invention and dedication to improve the West Belfast environment, and in turn to help educate the younger generations on the importance of physical development, restoration, and regeneration of west Belfast.“

The West Belfast Partnership Board is very grateful for the support and sponsorship of Translink, Apex Housing Association, Ark Housing Association, Bryson Recycling and the Housing Executive.