If you’re in any way involved in the arts or culture in Northern Ireland then you can’t help but have noticed the Lights Out NI campaign aimed at reinstating the funding recently cut by DETI. If you haven’t heard, then you can read more about it here. This is a seriously big deal for us in Northern Ireland, and comes as a crushing blow after the repeated success of events like Culture Night which we all look forward to and love.
To help fight this, you can start by liking (and sharing) the Lights Out NI Facebook page here. You can also take their advice and write an email or a letter to your MLA and Arlene Foster, the Minister responsible for these cuts. This is how they suggest that you go about it:
You might want to include some or all of these questions. Make them your own, change the wording around, but make sure they are questions, because then your politicians will be obliged to come back with answers
• Say something about how the axing of events funding will effect you personally – what events do you go to, what you like about events, how they have changed you and your feelings about Northern Ireland etc
• Give any personal stories which show the benefit of events – friends visiting from outside NI saying what a great buzz the place has; how they spent loads of money here; how they will tell their mates about it ….that sort of thing
• Ask why the Events funding has been cut when it has been proved that for each £1 invested in events by NITB, more than £3 of spend is generated for the local economy. This means that over the next 12 months more than £3.5 million is being lost to the local economy through this decision with a loss of local employment. Ask how this can be justified in the current situation.
• Ask why the Executive is investing millions of pounds to bring jobs to Northern Ireland from abroad, but is not investing in the very events which provide local employment and attract inward investment from international companies by adding to the quality of life for workers.
• Why is the Events fund being cut when the activities supported attract hundreds of thousands of visitors to Northern Ireland and project a positive image of NI abroad to counter much of the negative stories the world media carries.
Arlene Foster can be contacted here:
Private Office
Department of Enterprise Trade and Investment
Netherleigh
Massey Avenue
Belfast
BT4 2JP
E-mail: privateoffice@detini.gov.uk
And you can use this website to find the emails of your MLAs…
https://www.writetothem.com/
Or if you want to send a physical letter you can find details of all MLAs here…
http://www.niassembly.gov.uk/Your-MLAs/It cannot be overstated how important this is. If enough of you write they have to do something.
You can find out how to contact your MLA by having a look on here.
We can’t stress enough how big of a deal this is, let’s fight this!
