Governance

The CWI Central Group for 2023/2024 is:

Anastasia Crickley

Anastasia Crickley is the European Director of the International Association for Community Development, Chairperson of the All Ireland Endorsement Body for Community Work Education and Training (AIEB) and a member of the national Anti-Racism Committee. She was first Chairperson of the European Union Fundamental Rights Agency, Representative of the OSCE Chair on Racism, and a former President of UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination. Anastasia is a longstanding member and former chairperson of the Community Workers’ Co-operative / Community Work Ireland, a founder member of Pavee Point and the Migrant Rights Centre Ireland and the former Head of Department at the Department of Applied Social Studies at Maynooth University. Anastasia currently chairs the CWI Policy and Practice Working Group.

Ann Friel

Ann Friel is a Traveller Women, a Human Rights Activist and is the Primary Health Care Co-ordinator and Assistant Project Manager with Donegal Travellers Project – A local independent Community Development and Human Rights organisation working for and with the Irish Traveller and Roma Community in County Donegal. Ann has been working in the Community Work Sector for over 20 years and is committed to achieving equitable health outcomes for the Traveller and Roma Community and has advocated at local, national and international level both at policy and practice level. Ann coordinates the Donegal Travellers Primary Health Care Team funded by the Social Inclusion Unit in the HSE and has graduated from Maynooth University with a certificate in ‘Community Work in a Changing Ireland’. Ann is committed to the eradication of oppression and discrimination for Travellers and Roma communities and stands in solidarity with Black Minority Ethnic Communities to achieve social justice and equality for all. and her work is underpinned by a community development and human rights framework.

Marianne O’Shea

Marianne O’Shea is a lecturer on the professional Community Work and Youth Work programmes at the Department of Applied Social Studies, Maynooth University. In terms of research work there, she is interested in community work as a rights-based practice locally and globally, the role of local institutions addressing inequality and the participation of excluded voices in local governance processes. She has worked as a community worker in Ireland and in community-based and human rights focused projects in places such as Peru, Uganda and South Africa. This has contributed to a commitment to working in solidarity with other communities and community work practitioners experiencing similar challenges across the globe.

Niamh Wogan

Niamh Wogan has worked in both a paid and voluntary capacity in the community & voluntary sector for the past 25 years in Bray & Wicklow. Working in the Bray Family Resource & Development Project, she has played a major role in the development and implementation of a range of Social Inclusion initiatives and programmes in response to identified needs within the local community. Niamh is currently a member of a range of local groups and organisations in Wicklow that focus on addressing Social Exclusion and Poverty. Niamh is a member of the Central group of CWI.

Reuben Hambakachere

Reuben Hambakachere is a motivated Integration support worker with Cultur Migrants Centre in Navan. He has a background in Sociology. Reuben has a lived experience and professional knowledge of working with migrants in Ireland and several EU countries. Reuben is also a Trainer and face of the TREND web responsive app used to train migrants to be job creators in their new host countries, an EU ERASMUS Project supported by the Institute of Art Design & Technology Ireland, the app is used in 7 EU countries. He is Currently completing a Level 9 MSocSc in Community and Youth Work at Maynooth University. He has a passion for creating conditions for change for ethnic minorities and marginalised groups in Ireland. Reuben is on the board of Irish Refugee Council, Community Work Ireland, and Our Table, a community-driven non-profit project aiming to highlight the issues faced by people living in direct provision.

Seanie Lambe

Seanie Lambe is a community activist in the North Inner City area of Dublin. He has been involved in Community Development in the area for over 40 years, and remains an active participant in many community based initiatives He is Chairperson of the Inner City Organisations Network (ICON), a director of Saol, a project for women in recovery, a director of the Employment Network, Dublin Inner City Co-Op, and chairs a number of charitable trust companies dealing with housing and education.

Siobhán McLoughlin

Siobhán McLoughlin is the director of the Donegal Traveller Project. An experienced community development worker, Siobhán is also involved in work to ensure equality for New Communities in Donegal.

Anne Nolan

Anne Nolan is

Gary Cogan

Gary Cogan is