MoH’s trip to Belfast

In June, some of MoH crew headed over to Belfast for a week’s visit. This included Lewis Brown, storyteller, Gill Taylor, strategic lead for Dying Homeless Project, Matt and Jess Turtle, MoH directors and James Vale, data analyst. We also took five items from our collection; the first time they have been in a plane!

Our mission was to make sure the Dying Homeless Project is doing justice to people who are dying whilst experiencing homelesness in Northern Ireland.

Forum at the Ulster Museum

We held a forum at the Ulster Museum, hit the Streets with People’s Kitchen Belfast, met with government and visited the needle exchange. We visited Simon Community NI and MAC Belfast too. We met with many workers, activists, people experiencing homelessness, civil servants and journalists.

We undertook a knowledge exchange with colleagues at National Museums Northern Ireland regarding our respective work on trauma and grief. A special thanks to the team there for hosting us, providing a beautiful room for our forum and giving us the honour of sharing our collection in the Troubles and Beyond gallery.

Knowledge exchange with the curatorial team at NMNI

Lewis share object stories in the Troubles and Beyond Gallery

By the end of the week, we were able to get a much clearer picture of what is happening in NI, the specific struggles people are facing and the community and charity responses to the rise in homelessness, which are outstanding.

Together we are cooking up some plans to work together on preventing deaths.

Thanks so much to everyone who met with us and welcomed us so warmly ❤️

MoH crew at the People’s Kitchen with founder Paul McCusker