Putting Ballee on the history map

Putting Ballee on the history map

6 February 2013

THE colourful history of Ballee is to be captured on film and recreated on stage thanks to a grant from the Big Lottery Fund.

The Ballee and District Community Group is one of 11 from across Northern Ireland awarded grants totalling over £96,000 from the Big Lottery Fund and Arts Council of Northern Ireland’s Culture for All programme.

Culture for All is a small grants programme offering grants of up to £10,000 to communities that want to play a part in the UK City of Culture celebrations in 2013.

Community organisations can apply for funding to run arts and culture projects and activities that link in with the historic event, encourage talent and improve the lives of people in communities.

The Ballee group has been awarded £6,683 to encourage young people to delve into the area’s history and record it in films and stage performances.

Young people aged between 12 and 18 years will create short films looking at local traditional and culture and local primary and secondary school pupils will take part in two drama performances telling local stories.

Ballee and District Community Group chairwoman Isabel Kelly explained the group runs activities for young people living within a file mile radius of the village.

“This is quite an isolated, rural area and there are very few opportunities for young people to try new things and find out what they like and what they are good at,” she said.

“That’s why we’re running this project and we are using film and drama because it’s a great way for young people to learn new skills, express themselves and feel inspired.”

Isabel said the film making project will run on a Saturday evening when there is not much for the young people to do.

She continued: “We will have a professional film maker train the young people. They will learn all about production techniques both behind and in front of the camera and work towards a short film.

“In keeping with UK City of Culture year in Derry-Londonderry our theme will be our local culture, we will be looking at characters like St. Patrick and at landmarks in the area. The young people will learn about local history and culture.”

Isabel said these themes will then be carried on into the two theatrical productions which will involve drama, music and dance delivered by local artists.

She added: “Most of the children will never have performed something like this before. It will give them new skills, increase their confidence and give them a new interest.

“We have a fantastic mix of children from different primary schools. This is also about bringing them all together and establishing relationships. This project is going to be a great celebration of culture.”