COMMUNITY efforts to strengthen Mayfield have paid dividends in recent weeks.
Mayfield residents Catherine Coffey O’Brien and Terri Newman have hit out at the neglect of the area recenty.
Garda patrols have increased in the area and residents have reported a reduction in anti-social and criminal behaviour.
However, Mayfield resident and community activist Terri Newman warned that a lull often follows any major incident in Mayfield and that they must keep working to keep the area safe.
A new basketball team called the Mayfield Titans is currently being formed by the community to cater for children through to adults.
Ms Newman said she has been working with fellow residents Catherine Coffey O’Brien and Karen Collins in a bid to galvanise the community.
They hope that by speaking out they will give other people the confidence to do so too.
They advocate the use of restorative justice, rather than internment, to effectively penalise and reduce anti-social and criminal behaviour.
Restorative justice aims to rehabilitate offenders through reconciliation with victims and the community.
“Forcing perpetrators to listen to the victims of their crime and clean-up whatever mess they made would make them realise the consequences of their actions making them slow to re-offend,” said Ms Coffey O’Brien.
She said that cutbacks have reduced vital supports for the area and locals are struggling to cope with the workload that is needed.
“We have lots of facilities but few facilitators. It’s like having a beautiful garden with no one to maintain it,” she said. “There are great buildings which could provide courses and meeting spaces but they’re mostly closed in the afternoons due to lack of resources.”
She said that everyone is supposed to be afforded an equal chance in Ireland but that this is not the case in Mayfield.
She believes that early intervention is vital to level the playing field and give children a chance to break the cycle of poverty that may have snared their older family members.
She said there is a waiting list for the local crèche but that a place there is vital to catch behavioural and speech issues early on.
There were concerns late last year that the crèche may be shut down, which Ms Coffey O’Brien believes would have been a huge loss to residents of Lagan Grove and the surrounding estates.
“It’s about equal opportunities and child safety,” Ms Coffey O’Brien said.
She explained that solving the social problem in Mayfield is ‘like being in a foggy room trying to find your way out’.
“We want to see results and have structures in place including long-term community policing forces,” she said.
“We have great people here and we want hope in the area. We want children here to have the same chances as everyone else. We’re not going anywhere, we will keep asking the questions and campaign for action.
“Mayfield was built on social housing so the State has a responsibility to its tenants here.
“You can’t dump hundreds of people of the same socioeconomic group into the one area unsupported and not anticipate problems.”
“Terri Newman, Karen Collins and I are engaging on community issues because the blanket has been taken off our eyes, through education and mixing with different people we realise the unfairness and inequalities in society and e want to challenge that.”
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