From Mountains to Coastlines: Exploring Ireland's Outdoor Social Enterprise Playgrounds.

This week we are going to look at some of the great Social Enterprises around Ireland that can help you or someone you know to get into the great outdoors. These social ventures are working towards improving peoples mental health and wellness. Also we will take a look at communities getting creative with their hidden treasures and in doing so creating more inclusive and accessible outdoor activities.

Firstly Venture Out Wilderness project.

"Venture Out adopt a strengths based, needs led, participant centred approach. Through experiential learning and active participation, participants are supported in their journeys of self discovery and reflection.".

Next we take a look at how you can get out on the water, With partners all across Ireland, Sailing into Wellness offer sailing programmes and residential programmes. See their website for partner details

Their programs are based on social inclusion. "We believe?our programs help to remove the socioeconomic and physical barriers that prevent some sections of our society from accessing such opportunities."

Also in keeping with water based activities, we visit Lough Ree

Lough Ree Access For All CLG is working with its partners Waterways Ireland and Inland Fisheries Ireland, Failte Ireland, Roscommon & Longford County Council & The Just Transition Fund of Ireland on this project to improve access for people with disability to the rivers and lakes.

Lastly we visit a novel tourism project in the west, operated by a Kiltimagh IRD a Social Enterprise.

The Velo rail experience a one of a kind in Ireland is a tourism project in Kiltimagh in Mayo. The local community worked on making the most of the local disused railway line to create a unique cycle/bike experience on the railway track. See further details on their website for bookings.?

We hope you learned about some new projects and feel free to mention any other ones you'd like to draw our attention to in the comments.

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