Looking back, and going forward

I was sitting at my desk catching up on social media updates, emails and admin when I glanced at my diary with the realisation that it was 1st of November. Wow. I have been working on the Border Lives project for over a year.

In a cliched way, time has flown by, but actually it's quite satisfying to look back and think about how much work has been done in the past year.

When I started on 29th October last year, I was still a blonde (am now a redhead), the project had a different name and was just some text on a funding application form. Conor (Project Manager) and myself were faced with the challenge of turning this name and the objectives into a project that not only met our targets but really achieved something.

I remember creating my work plan for the first 3 months and it being absurdly over ambitious so I quickly re-drafted it to something more realistic.

My approach was always to get out there and meet people. Yes I did book research, yes I researched online and yes I visited libraries but none of that even came close to the knowledge and experience I got from meeting and talking to people.

I've met with approximately 300 people so far, not only to tell them about our project and what we hope to do but to listen to their thoughts and advice, and answer their questions (if I could). This has been the key influence in shaping our project to what it is today. I can safely sit here and say that I am very proud of how Border Lives is turning out.

Of course, we have painstakingly procured for services such as our branding and logo design, our monitoring and evaluation framework, our website design and the video production. (Conor can testify to that!) We have held information events and put our steering committee into place. We have researched and drawn up our own code of conduct and good practice. We really have worked hard.

At times developing this project has felt overwhelming but that's only because we care about it, we take pride in the project and our input into it. We want it to be of the highest quality in every aspect.

And so, what of the next nine months?

There is still A LOT of work to be done but I'll keep doing what I'm doing.

I'll keep meeting people, keep researching, keep listening, keep thinking, keep caring.

After all, Border Lives is about the participants and the people from the border region. It is about you.

I'm confident that it's this approach that has made and will continue to make Border Lives a great project.

BBC NI Radio Interview 

Visit to Raphoe, County Donegal

Border Town Exhibition in Newry

Information Event