Side by side
We’re working for a future where people no longer face barriers to participation, connected by supportive, sustainable community networks.
Photo: ACCN, Supporting Minority Ethnic Communities Project Launch
Supporting Minority Ethnic Communities to tell their stories.
Photo: Kevin Burns, NWCN Media training, 2025
Our work connects people, and challenges barriers to participation.
Photo: ACCN, Supporting Minority Ethnic Communities Launch
Photo: ACCN, Supporting Minority Ethnic Communities Launch
We’re supporting organisations from minority ethnic communities.
See news and updates about the Supporting Minority Ethnic Communities project.
We know that minority ethnic communities in the North West face more, and different, barriers to participation than many others.
Structural biases mean these communities are often underserved, or even excluded, from established community development. Yet, they are nonetheless supported by passionate and highly skilled volunteer groups.
We appreciate how valuable volunteer groups are to community development, but we’re also aware of the challenges and structural limits this approach includes.
That's why, with the support of Dormant Assets NI, we've partnered with Kabalikat In North West and the African Caribbean Community Network to provide capacity, resilience and sustainability support to minority ethnic community groups in our region.
Our approach focuses on equitable relationships, reflective practice, and shared ownership.
Mutual, not extractive
We're opposed to extractive practices that treat the community like a source of data or credibility, without ownership.
Relationships are infrastructure
We try to practice what we preach, by working equitably with partners and people with lived experience.
Challenging our thinking
We try to challenging our assumptions and biases: because communities keep changing: so should community workers.
Photo: NWCN, Ideas Fund planning session
We’re part of The Ideas Fund, an innovative community funding programme
The Ideas Fund is a grant-making programme of the British Science Association, funded by the Wellcome Trust, started in 2021 to test new ways of supporting communities working on ideas around mental wellbeing.
The Ideas Fund makes social place-based investments in chosen regions around the UK: Hull, Highlands and Islands, Oldham, and the North West of Northern Ireland. It seeks to innovates on new approaches to grant-making and funding relationships, with a particular emphasis on overlooked social groups.
Organisations working on ideas related to mental wellbeing are paired with researchers, usually drawn from local and regional universities, who work together for mutual benefit through innovation, knowledge exchange, and skills development.
NWCN manager, Roisin McLaughlin, is the Development Coordinator for The Ideas Fund in the North West of Northern Ireland. This means NWCN provides guidance and support for all the grantee projects, and has a role in shaping this innovative UK-wide programme.
Photo : Patrick Duddy Photography, Launch of 'The Clarendon Way', by Yellow Wood.
The newest phase of the Ideas Fund is what we call 'Evidence Building Grants'.
The aim of Evidence Building Grants is to capture evidence and share the impact of community-led collaboration with research on researchers and communities. There are two grantees in the North West of Northern Ireland: the inspirational Arc Fitness, who support people to recover from addiction; and the wonderful Yellow Wood, a holistic wellbeing initiative based in a Derry GP surgery.
Photo: Kevin Burns, NWCN 5-Year Plan
Our mission is to build the capacity of the community and voluntary sector.
Support
Through training, guidance and tailored support, we help community groups to meet their goals.
Connect
We connect community groups to resources and assets, and keep them up to date on opportunities.
Network
We build supportive networks for collaboration and speaking with a unified voice.
Our people
-
![]()
Roisin McLaughlin
Manager
Roisin has led NWCN since 2018, and has over 17 years of experience as a skilled practitioner in areas including capacity building; civic activism; anti-racism; and anti-sectarianism.
Contact
roisin@nwcn.org -
![]()
Neola Nelis-McCrossan
Finance & Administration Officer
Neola has been part of the NWCN team for over 15 years. She has extensive knowledge of finance and administration in the Community and Voluntary sector, and working with many different funding agencies.
Contact
neola@nwcn.org -
![]()
Kevin Burns
Project Officer
Kevin started at NWCN in May 2025, to head up our new project supporting organisations from minoritised ethnic communities. He has worked in the sector for the past 6 years as a digital and communications lead.
Contact
kevin@nwcn.org
