East Belfast Community Development Agency (EBCDA) is the “umbrella organisation” supporting community development in East Belfast.
Our membership is made up of community groups drawn from an area that contains just over 95,000 people. It is representative of a broad range of interests and needs within communities and encompasses a variety of groups, including residents’ associations, faith based organisations, sports clubs, older people’s projects and women’s groups.
People Build Communities
The title of our Strategic Plan “People Build Communities” is carried forward from our 2015-2020 Strategy. It is a concept we strongly believe in and as a concept, it is something we experience every day, within our work and is based on the following key points:
• Bricks and mortar (buildings) are important to invest in, as they allow for delivery processes to be more comprehensive, but without people buildings will remain empty.
• The community sector in East Belfast needs to collaborate more in all that it does, recognizing our strengths, our weaknesses and the opportunities we have ahead of us.
• We must exploit the opportunity to work with our funders, our elected representatives, Government Depts and other statutory agencies in a meaningful, collaborative and transparent way that benefits everyone’s agenda.