The new premises of EurAV in the centre of Drogheda was a hive of activity this week at a launch evening that saw founder Declan Cassidy introduce the organisation to a diverse group of local stakeholders. The ‘wine and nibbles’ event showcased EurAV’s tiny but versatile ‘nano’ green screen community tv studio and administrative offices.
“We’ve been active on a range of projects across the EU and we run a Facebook group of 15,000 social and education-focussed organisations so we’re quite well known internationally,” explained founder Declan Cassidy, “but, because we were established at the start of the pandemic when it made no sense to have an office, we’ve not had a local presence until now. The new premises changes all that.”
EurAV, which is a non-profit organisation, using audio visual skills to support activities in the areas of climate action, media literacy, social integration, culture and the arts, has already begun to add local initiatives to its trans-European work.
“We partnered with Sonairte near Laytown and ran a climate action project that involved working with the Mediterranean Agronomics Institute of Chania in Crete and we’re currently collaborating with the local multicultural women’s support group “Hands 4 Unity” on an immigrant entrepreneurship initiative that involves Germany and Italy,” explained Declan. “The launch event was about letting other local stakeholders know about us and what we do so that we can find further synergies. Drogheda has some great organisations doing phenomenal work. With our expertise and the little green screen studio, we’re in a position to support a lot of that.”
The event saw three-time ESB National Journalist Award winner Bill Tyson give a keynote speech about media literacy. Bill had travelled as part of a EurAV project to North Macedonia with local media specialist and film maker Fiona Ashe where the two provided specialist media insights to an international gathering in Bitola.
“The evening was all that I’d hoped it would be,” said Declan. “I was really appreciative that people showed up and the good will and enthusiasm that they showed has given me a lot of hope for the role of EurAV in the Drogheda community.”
