A COMMUNITY shop in Ballymena will give local people their first taste of enterprise. The Window will be operated by Bann Maine West Community Cluster in the Northern Zone Social Enterprise Hub premises on the corner of Bridge Street and will stock arts and crafts products made by local people.
The Hub, managed by LEDCOM, is one of 11 Hubs established across the nine Social Investment Zones under the Northern Ireland Executive’s Delivering Social Change Framework. With £4m of funding from the Executive’s Delivering Social Change Fund, the programme tackles poverty, dereliction and unemployment by encouraging social enterprise business start-up within local communities. Joanne Brown Kerr, development officer, explained:
“It’s a tremendous opportunity for us to trial a retail outlet that has the potential to bring in finance to support our work in the community.”