Town is now a hub for ‘social enterprises’

Social Hub Opening, Market Street Lurgan. Pictured, from left are, Paul Moorehead, LJHSTV, a hub tenant.
Cllr Colin McCusker, Mayor of Craigavon
Derek Brown, Hub Co-ordinator and
Ethna McNamee of Invest NI. INLM5014-4 — Social Hub Opening, Market Street Lurgan. Pictured, from left are, Paul Moorehead, LJHSTV, a hub tenant. Cllr Colin McCusker, Mayor of Craigavon Derek Brown, Hub Co-ordinator and Ethna McNamee of Invest NI. INLM5014-4

A new Southern Area Social Enterprise Hub has been established, based in at 45 Market Street, which will act as an outreach hub to stimulate social economy projects across the region.

Providing incubation space for new and developing social enterprises, staff at the new Hub will also offer information, training and support to assist local social enterprises to get started and grow.

The Mayor of Craigavon, Councillor Colin McCusker, officially opened the new Hub at a special launch yesterday (Wednesday).

With £4million of funding from the Executive’s Delivering Social Change fund, the Social Enterprise Hub Signature Programme will address poverty, dereliction and unemployment by encouraging social enterprise business start up within local communities.

The programme is being delivered by Insight Business Consulting, Groundwork Northern Ireland and North City Business Centre.

Derek Browne, Hub Manager, explained; “Our social enterprise sector has the potential to create thousands of jobs across Northern Ireland and developments like the Southern Area Social Enterprise Hub help embed new social economy projects in local communities.

“We’re basing the new Hub in Lurgan which gives us excellent reach across the Council areas of Armagh, Banbridge, Craigavon, Dungannon and Newry & Mourne.”

If you are interested, get in touch by email at [email protected] or visit their website at www.southsehub.co.uk