A Waterford coastal community faced with decline and an ageing population has turned its fortune round in spectacular fashion.
Six years ago the future looked bleak for the villages of Dunhill, Fenor and Annestown, and Boatstrand townland, which have a population of 1,500.
Young people were leaving to find employment elsewhere, and in recent years the two local national schools have each lost a teacher as pupil numbers dropped.
The involvement of residents has proved so successful that the community has become a model for others embarking on rural regeneration projects, and it is in the AIB Better Ireland awards finals, to be announced on Saturday week.
In late 1993 the residents organised themselves into a group which became DFBA Community Enterprises Ltd. It oversees a breathtaking array of development projects, including an enterprise centre in Dunhill which already employs 20 people in six new businesses, with 30 more jobs in the pipeline.
Two environmental initiatives overseen by the group have received national recognition: the Fenor Bog conservation project, winner of last year's Ford Irish Conservation Award; and the Anne Valley alternative land-use scheme.
The land-use scheme is a co-operative effort by 27 farmers. They are widening and deepening the river Anne, creating wildlife habitats and new spawning grounds for fish and constructing wetlands to act as natural waste-water purification systems for farmers in the valley.
The group has also bought Dunhill Castle with its medieval graveyard and six acres of land and will conduct a feasibility study this year of how best to conserve and use this landmark heritage site.
On the tourism front, the Copper Coast concept has been developed with the neighbouring villages of Bunmahon and Stradbally to promote a 15-mile stretch of coastline between Tramore and Dungarvan.
A sub-committee has run a community market on the first Sunday of every month in Dunhill for the past five years. The sale of crafts, vegetables, cakes, jams and honey, fish, cheeses, books, clothing and other products provides an additional source of income for the vendors and, by way of a levy, for DFBA Community Enter prises.
The group, which was incorporated as a limited company in 1995, is run by a steering committee elected at a public a.g.m. yearly. Sub-committees running the projects report to the steering committee, and more than 100 people are involved on a voluntary basis.
The overall effect of the projects has been to transform the area, says the group's secretary, Mr Senan Cooke. "They give people a sense of purpose and they've captured the imagination of people both from inside and outside the locality . . . People support us because they can see we're going places."
The group's motto is "There is no limit to what can be achieved by a community working together", and perhaps its most striking achievement is how apparently disparate interests are working to a common agenda. The predominant economic activity in the area is intensive farming, yet environmental concerns are at the heart of most of the group's work.
"One farmer on his own could not have achieved much," says Mr Willie Moore of the Anne Valley project, for which he is responsible, "but with 27 working together we can do an awful lot. People who were sceptical at the start are all into it now."
Committee members are grateful for support from State agencies including FAS, which provided an officer for the enterprise centre, and companies like Glanbia, Roadstone and Waterford Crystal, the group's first significant sponsor. A new five-year plan has been drawn up, and it sees the continued expansion of the enterprise centre as a primary target. More than £50,000 has been raised locally so far.
"By setting up this group we got people to come together and do things for each other's benefit, instead of sitting around giving out and saying, `This is how things should be done'," reflects DFBA's chairman, Mr Donal Lehane.
"Now," another steering committee member, Ms Catherine O'Brien, adds cheerfully, "we haven't got time to give out about anything."
As well as the DFBA Community Enterprises, the Level 1 finalists in the AIB Better Ireland Awards are the Aughnacloy/ Truagh European Schools Project, Co Monaghan; the Mercy Family Centre, Dublin 8; and the North West Hospice, Co Sligo.
