*** IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT*** Shantallow Community Collective have become increasingly concerned about the activities of a group that has recently been established in the Shantallow area which we believe is operating to the agenda of sinister hidden hands in order to cause confusion and discredit the work of the organisations that make up SCC and we are putting on record that we will not allow this to happen. Our constituent groups are reporting that each of them has been contacted on numerous occasions during the past number of weeks and have been asked if were they involved in the new groupings such was the confusion that was deliberately created. We have been operating in the Greater Shantallow area for over five years. We are a collective of community and political organisations and individuals. We run a range of services for the community on a voluntary basis and thousands of local people avail of our services every year. We offer welfare advice, housing advice, advocacy, mediation and help with wider community cohesion. We work tirelessly at the coalface helping our community on a daily basis and we see the creation of this group under various names as an effort to destroy the work that we do. SCC offer support in terms of tackling the effects of welfare reform. Former councillors Hugh Brady and Warren Robinson as well as other activists offer a range of help to the wider community from the umbrella of Shantallow Community Collective. Groups such as Teach Na Failte (Ex-INLA Prisoners), Unite Community Membership, Time to Choose, Open Doors Project, Galliagh Community Empowerment and others operate from our premises on Racecourse Road and they all form part of our collective approach to serve the needs of the community in this area. We first and foremost are community activists with a long standing record of working for and with our communities. Recently though, this new group have attempted to subvert the work of the Shantallow Community Collective by attempting to hijack our name by creating pages on social media in order to instill confusion within our community, this group has absolutely no history of working in the community and we wish to put on record that there is no connection between the long established Shantallow Community Collective and the groups set up calling themselves variously either: • Unite the Community • Greater Shantallow Community Collective • Greater Shantallow Community Initiative The creation of these groups is a very real concern within the community and bears all the hallmarks of a kitsonian plot to divide our community by creating confusion around their existence and legitimacy. We demand in the strongest possible terms that they immediately desist. We believe there are hidden and sinister hands at play and we wish to state categorically that the Shantallow Community Collective and all of the groups which operate under our collective have absolutely no connection to any of the newly established groups listed above.

Derry Now

Derry Now

Foyle Foodbank

This is where Welfare Reform has brought us. Those who brought this upon our communities should be ashamed of themselves. People need to get angry about this sort of thing, it should never be acceptable for our friends and neighbours to rely on handouts from Foodbanks and charities just to get by. If you can help the Foyle Foodbank with this appeal please do. Items can be left with us and we will make sure they are forwarded on to the foodbank. Sorry for the rant but things need to change.

Action Against CUTS

Action Against Cuts meeting at Maldron Hotel tonight | Derry Now

Derry Now

The Buttercup

Great wee cafe, easily accessible for the people of Shantallow and Carnhill, great staff and friendly service.

Joyriders torch car outside shop in Derry

Joyriders torch car outside shop in Derry

Concerns raised after residents left without electricity in Ballyarnett

Galliagh Community Empowerment