NIRWN - Northern Ireland Rural Women's Network ____________________________________________________ NIRWN is a rural network which is jointly funded by DARD and DSD under the EU BSP Programme. NIRWN came into existence in August 2006 and employs a staff team of 6. The main aim of NIRWN is to articulate and amplify the voices of rural women at a strategic level. This Network has an exciting programme of work including: - developing weak community infrastructure in areas where little or no community based rural women's groups exist - increasing rural women's capacity and opportunities to influence decision-making and policy formulation - running Northern Ireland wide communication campaigns with a local focus, highlighting the value of rural women's contribution - offering a training and capacity building programme to rural women across the region The Network, through its programme of work, will highlight the valuable contribution rural women make to the rural development agenda. Rural women's activities have been the backbone of rural community life, in terms of supporting farming and families and preserving the social capital of communities. This activity has often been viewed as a secondary activity which is not recognised or valued at the decision making or policy level. Rural women have also been instrumental in taking risks, particularly in sensitive areas such as community relations and again a large percentage of this work has gone unrecognised or has not had the policy voice to support its development. We have three bases from which we carry out our work - Cookstown, Forkhill and Larne.