It’s Good To Know Your Neighbours!
This year’s Know Your Neighbour Weekend took place on Saturday July 11th and Sunday July 12th. The event again encouraged everyone to do more to get to know their neighbours. A list of activities and events that people organised as part of the weekend is available on the official website www.knowyourneighbour.ie.
These various events included: a barbeque, a coffee morning, a picnic, a football game and a cleanup day of the local estate.
Macra na Feirme’s national president, Michael Gowing, explained, “This initiative is a great way of encouraging people who don’t know anybody living in their local street, estate or apartment block to do something to rectify that situation.
Irish people are seeing a change in their living circumstances and it is important that people get to know their neighbours and those in their locality. In times like these it’s good to know your neighbours. We can all become involved. I’d urge anyone interested in organising an activity or event to order their organiser’s pack straight away and start planning for the weekend of July 11th and 12th.”
ESB Chief Executive, Padraig McManus, said the Know your Neighbour Weekend initiative can energise a real sense of caring in the community. “It is a practical reminder to all of us that we have a responsibility to those around us,” he said. “This is a welcome positive force and can provide a social safety net in these current challenging times.
The Know your Neighbour weekend is aimed at encouraging people throughout Ireland to get to know new neighbours, as well as urging us to reacquaint ourselves with people we have neglected in our busy lives.”
The event was launched by President McAleese at the Shelbourne Hotel in Dublin on Tuesday June 9th. President McAleese said, “From its beginning, just a few short years ago, the Know Your Neighbour Weekend has proved its worth but this year more than ever, as Ireland struggles with serious difficulties, we need to reinforce that resource that has always been our strength- the good neighbourliness, the tight bonds of community, the leaning on one another and the pulling together, which has seen us through worse times than these.”
More than 2,000 organiser’s packs were requested from community groups who organised events all over the country. Events such as table quizzes, coffee mornings, beach parties, family fun days, charity slave auctions, tug of war competitions, community area clean ups followed by barbecues, etc, were organised in the name of Know Your Neighbour Weekend.
This year the Society of St Vincent de Paul supported the initiative by encouraging everyone to get involved. Cope Galway, who recently carried out a survey that highlighted that 70% of people surveyed had never, or rarely, been in their neighbour’s house, got involved and organised a full weekend of activities.
