17/06/2026
Since we received the news that we were successful in our Special EU Programmes Body - SEUPB PEACEPLUS Changemaker application we have been quietly working away in the background making plans and bringing the ideas together for a real life project! So we want to give you a little background on what those ideas are…we’d love to hear your thoughts. An overview in our graphic below…but we also have the wordy version here if you want to read a little about us 🥰:
Our project name is’CRAFT’ which stands for Creative Routes & Activities Forging Togetherness
🎨 Studio 1 is a collective group of designers and makers represented by a board of 5 directors who volunteer their time in a community interest company (Studio 1 Craft Centre CIC). Our aim is to support, sustain and promote, makers, creatives and artisans, as well as the handmade industry in our local district of Strabane and border counties. While also engaging with the community to share our skills and knowledge, through events, demonstrations and workshops. Reviving and encouraging the history of heritage crafts that Strabane once thrived on as a market town.
🎨 All directors are from a creative background and own their own art/design businesses, we want to tackle two challenges that we have identified through our own work in our area;
i) the lack of resources and facilities for local artisans, designers/makers to practice and promote their goods and skills without the large overheads it takes to go it alone.
ii) Through our own experience we have noticed there is a gap in our area for creative workshops specifically aimed at people with additional needs, this can be physical, mental and emotional arising from a disability, life trauma or illness. Many studies have shown that creating art, no skills required, has a central role in healing and helping self-care. We want to address that need locally offering a series of creative workshops with experienced facilitators with our partners and their centre users. In the long term we want to carry this service through beyond the period this project using this as our pilot scheme.
🎨Over the last few decades, a growing body of studies and anecdotal evidence suggests that art used as a healing tool has driven the incorporation of art into medical settings or even in separate centres dedicated to offering these services to ease the pressure on health organisations. The USA, Canada and Australia are leading the way in this practice, we are far behind in terms of this resource. With our partners we aim to develop a series of workshops over a 24 month period that will help promote that art and heritage skills (ie getting back to basic skills) to have a fundamental benefit to helping heal and nurture our mental health within our community regardless of ability or background.
🎨 Proposed workshops with our partner New Horizons Partnership and associates and Hillside Day Centre (Dillon Court) include:
Textile Sculpture with Westhaven Art
Green Wood Working with Gaia heritage arts & crafts,
Fused glass design with Natasha Duddy Glass Designs
Pottery with Muddy Fingers McGurn
Wood Turning with PMG Woodturning & CNC Carving
🎨 We are currently working on getting a dedicated space in the town centre, this is a work in progress, we hope to share an update on this soon. From this neutral space we would run our workshops. Start a Community Hub with both a men and women’s groups, that can meet up once a week. We would love to see these groups be self led, with our help, growing to form a community together doing something different every week like book clubs, crafts, games & exercise. Or even becoming a group of makers and selling under the Studio 1 Collective! We see this as an opportunity to provide vital social connections, improved mental wellbeing, and a reliable support network that helps individuals overcome personal challenges and mitigates long-term loneliness by introducing regular social interactions.
🎨We aim to offer space for artists to have a place they could work from together as a collective group. Ideal if you are a ‘kitchen table artist’ overheads of a studio space are often beyond reach and impractical at an early stage of a business. Sharing a studio setting with a few other artists creates a supportive network, even if its only a day a week. Plus a resource library of tools that could help with product shots, creating their own business cards or packaging etc.
🎨Overall our ambition is to focus on sustainability, with artists and groups forging a relationship that could be maintained after the project to continue working together and meet regularly at Studio 1 where we will continue to build a safe space to socialise and create beyond this project duration.
If you’ve got this far…thanks for reading! We’d love to hear your comments, feedback and thoughts as we want to develop our ideas with our community in mind.
