PHOTOS Social Enterprise Limerick showcase at Limerick’s Milk Market highlights innovation and community impact

Social Enterprise Limerick showcase at Limerick’s Milk Market highlights innovation and community impact

Social Enterprise Limerick showcase at Limerick’s Milk Market promotes and inspires social change by supporting local enterprises to promote themselves

Social Enterprise Limerick (SEL) provides a local platform for social enterprises to meet, network, share their experiences and learn from each other and held a showcase at Limerick Milk Market on May 28th, which was attended by over 20 social enterprises from the Limerick region who are part of the network. Social Enterprise Limerick currently has 33 social enterprises who are proud members of the network.

A social enterprise is an enterprise whose objective is to achieve a social, societal or environmental impact, rather than maximising profit for its owners or shareholders.

Social Enterprise Limerick is a collaborative network set-up in the interest of providing a support system for social enterprises across Limerick and to help foster a growing community of viable, robust and socially impactful businesses and individuals.

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The network brings together private, public and non-profit sectors to explore possible ways they can all collaborate to make a social impact and to help promote and inspire social change and aims to encourage knowledge sharing and collaboration among social enterprises in Limerick.

The network has a particular focus on specific thematic areas relevant to Social Enterprise in the city, including Community Food Provision, Community Gardens, Circular Economy & Environment, Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), Community Childcare and more and works with both established social enterprises and also start-ups.

This past February, Social Enterprise Limerick held a festival called Pure Limerick, which was the City’s first multi-artform community arts festival and over 15 community arts organisations contributed to the festival. Other notable projects include the ‘Limerick Growing Communities’ project which explores opportunities for Community Gardening and Growing Projects in Limerick. The benefits are immense, from wellbeing to community engagement.

Social Enterprise Limerick was initiated by Limerick City Partnership under the Social Inclusion and Community Activation Programme (known as SICAP). SICAP provides social inclusion support to individuals and community organisations and is co-funded by the Government of Ireland through the Department of Rural and Community Development and the European Union.

Aisling Lohan, Assistant Manager of Southill Hub, commented, “Southill Hub is honoured to be one of the social enterprises involved with Social Enterprise Limerick.  Social Enterprise Limerick is a wonderful resource for all the social enterprises within Limerick. It’s a really good space for people to meet and to share information. So many collaborative projects have happened, and that supports us to access shared funding so we can apply as a collective.”

Michael Gleeson, Social Enterprise Officer with Limerick City Partnership said, “ Social Enterprise Limerick is an initiative of Limerick City Partnership, and it’s a network of social enterprises in the city of Limerick. It’s a group of social enterprises who’ve come together to collaborate on different projects. My job, essentially, is to act as a support to both existing social enterprises and startup social enterprises, making sure they’re aware of all the funding opportunities, of all of the different programmes that are out there.

“We meet approximately once a month. We collaborate on a range of different projects. We have food recycling projects. We have community arts projects, food projects, community growing projects, and a really broad network.”

Laura Holland, CEO of Lilac Café and Micro-bakery & Vice Chair of SEL, added the group has helped get Lilac Café to where it is today thanks to mentors and the support within the community. She said, “ I’ve gained some mentors. We use a lot of the community kitchens to pilot our programs, which has led us to opening our own dedicated training centre here now in the Limerick Milk Market. So without their support, we really wouldn’t be where we are today.”

The social enterprises attending the event included Moyross Community Enterprise Centre CLG, St Munchin’s Community Centre, Gateway to Education, Conscious Connections, Football Cooperative, Bodytree Community Clinics, Cairde Enterprises, Doon Social Farm, Lime Tree Theatre and Belltable, Tait House Community Enterprise, The Urban Co-op, KAER Communications, Dóchas Midwest Autism Support, Crokers Farm, Northside Family Resource Centre, Limerick Youth Service – The Factory Southside Youthspace, The Hunt Museum, Dance Limerick, The Gaff, The Lilac Café & Microbakery CLG, I Love Limerick, Our Lady of Lourdes Community Services Group, and Social Enterprise Limerick.  

Photos: Olena Oleksienko/ilovelimerick