Brief History of Mahon Community Development Project

The Mahon Community Development Project (MCDP) was formed in 1992 by the bringing together of people both living and working in Mahon to form a management committee. This committee submitted a workplan to the then Department of Social Welfare and was funded in November of that year to employ two core staff (a Project Leader and an Administrator) and run a community resource centre for Mahon, under the National Community Development support programme.

The Community Resource Centre was set up initially in the Bessboro Enterprise Centre in September 1993. Staff and Management worked from there until 1995 when Unit 7 Community Resource Centre, Ave de Rennes Mahon was opened. The Centre was officially opened by Proinnsias De Rossa, the Minister for Social Welfare at the time.

Units 5 & 6 were purchased and renovated in 1997 to provide a crèche for the area. This facility opened for business in January 1998.

Mahon Community Development Project successfully enlarged its staffing numbers (through Fas CE scheme and Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform childcare core funding) to support the growing project’s needs. More recently, Unit 4 was purchased in 2001 as workspace the project staff.

The Project is recognised as a strong and well established organisation at this stage and apart from running the Community Resource Centre and the Community Crèche, the Project has successfully initiated and supported work with Travellers, People with Disabilities, youth, residents groups, men, women, older people and tackles discrimination in all its forms as well as linking/networking with many organisations and groups.