This Assembly provides information and updates on the ongoing development of the INSPIRE project pilot in Ireland. The pilot explores how to make policy-making in Ireland more inclusive by co-designing new participatory spaces with women from migrant backgrounds and policy-makers.
The Irish pilot aims to develop and foster discursive engagement and dialogue between a group of women from migrant backgrounds, their wider community, and local and central government to build co-create and test and pilot a participatory space for these women within local government decision-making and policymaking processes.
The pilot is working closely and in partnership with the Intercultural Women’s Network, a long-standing network of women from diverse national, cultural and linguistic backgrounds in the Dublin and Kildare region of Ireland. The pilot is also working with other women’s groups and local government to look for change in planning and policymaking to include women’s voices, ideas and experiences.
Welcome to the page of the INSPIRE project pilot in Ireland.
The Irish pilot project explores how to make policymaking in Ireland more inclusive by co-designing new participatory spaces with and for women from migrant backgrounds and policy makers.
The Irish pilot aims to develop and foster discursive engagement and dialogue between a group of women from migrant backgrounds, their wider community, and local and central government to develop and trial a participatory space for these women within local government decision-making and policymaking processes.
The pilot is working closely and in partnership with the Intercultural Women’s Network, a long-standing network of women from diverse national, cultural and language backgrounds in the wider Dublin and Kildare region of Ireland. The pilot is also working with other women’s groups and local government to look for change in planning and policymaking to include women’s voices, ideas and experiences.
The pilot aims to:
(i) co-develop participation, development engagement and understanding between the researchers, women from different backgrounds and policy makers.
(ii) identify the factors and conditions that contribute to strong, inclusive and embedded participation.
(iii) test and produce collective spaces of participation that are flexible and continuously re-imagined through the ways participants engage.
On 1st April 2025, the Intercultural Women’s Network (IWN) held an event to celebrate their 10 year anniversary, in the Mansion House, Dublin. Organised by the IWN in partnership with the INSPIRE researchers from CiviQ and the School of Applied Social Studies at UCC, the event was attended by women from a diverse group of migrant backgrounds in Ireland.
Speakers at the event included migrant women from diverse backgrounds sharing stories of their life in Ireland. They delivered in depth, heartfelt and progressive accounts of their experiences as workers, professionals, family members, caregivers and community members. They highlighted how they are vested in the process of resisting inequalities by focusing on the importance of practising communities as a form of resisting inequalities that marginalised groups face at large. The event also served to expand multicultural communication through singing, dancing and providing a space for spontaneous conversation that enabled discussion and exchange between participants.
In May 2025 the Irish pilot of INSPIRE held its first research event in Dublin. 24 women from different national, cultural and language backgrounds participated in the event, which was co-hosted with the Intercultural Women’s Network.
The goal of the event was to explore the views and experiences of women from migrant backgrounds about their participation in politics and policymaking in Ireland. The event also explored their knowledge of decision-making processes in Ireland and their understanding of how they can influence these processes in their communities, at local level and at national level.The women used drawing as a creative method to express their views and experiences to support expression and communication across different languages.
These experiences of inclusion were wide ranging, from participation in community groups, to leading civil society organisations focused on women’s issues, to running in local elections. Key themes that emerged focused on the challenges facing participants including:
accessing information on getting involved in policymaking
challenges in accessing public services
limitations in participating due to personal life circumstances
language barriers
confidence and fears about getting involved.
Discussions gave a very valuable insights into the potential of INSPIRE’s research to develop the Democratic Capabilities Framework from an intersectional inclusion perspective in WP1.
The event proved to be a powerful way of enabling women to share experiences and support each other in thinking about contributing to local and national policymaking. Support for each other and collective action for their respective communities were key themes shared. While not a focus of the workshop, this is important learning that will be brought forward to further participatory events with policymakers in Autumn 2025.
Following the event, in June 2025, a film based on the output of the workshop was presented at a public art exhibition that was part of an annual community festival in Kildare.
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