Awards for All funds SECA web design workshops.
ON FRIDAY 18th January, a presentation evening took place at the offices of Strabane Ethnic Community Association (SECA) in Bridge Street. The evening was organised to award young members of SECA and of Fountain St Community Centre with certificates for their attendance at a series of web design workshops.
The workshops were organised by SECA and were funded by the lottery grants scheme “Awards for All”. Purposemakers, a local web design company facilitated the workshops which took place at Fountain St Community Centre over the course of four weeks towards the end of last year.
The idea behind this initiative was to encourage children to become more actively involved with their local community group. By teaming up with a local web designer, SECA believed that they could engage their younger members and show them how they can make a contribution to the group.
Through the course of the workshops the children were actively involved in the design of a website for SECA. They were given the opportunity to voice their ideas and to discuss with Purposemakers what they felt would make a successful website. They were taken through the various stages involved in designing a website from designing a concept to creating a content managed site. Everyone that attended therefore had the opportunity to learn about the web design process and were trained in how to update the website themselves. Additional topics covered included Staying Safe On-line with particular emphasis on the safe use of Bebo, MySpace and other social networking sites.
Bobby Rao, Development Officer for SECA has said he is delighted with the success of the workshops and with the website that the young group has been involved in developing. He now hopes that his younger members will take ownership of the website and take responsibility for updating details of all their projects and upcoming events.
On behalf of his Board, Bobby would like to take this opportunity to thank everyone that participated in the initiative including Fountain Street Community Centre and Purposemakers Web Design.
Further information on the services provided by SECA and on other projects they have been involved in can be obtained by visiting their website: www.seca.org.uk. Alternatively please email info@seca.org.uk or telephone Bobby on 02871886419.
Saint Patrick’s Day
| March 17, 2008 |
Saint Patrick’s Day is an annual feast day which celebrates Saint Patrick (circa 385–461), one of the patron saints of Ireland. It takes place on 17 March, the date on which Patrick is held to have died.
The day is the national holiday of the Irish people. It is a bank holiday in Northern Ireland, and a public holiday in the Republic of Ireland, Montserrat, and the Canadian province of Newfoundland and Labrador. In the rest of Canada, Great Britain, Australia, the United States and New Zealand, it is widely celebrated but is not an official holiday.
It became a feast day in the Roman Catholic Church due to the influence of the Waterford-born Franciscan scholar Luke Wadding[2] in the early part of the 17th century, and is a holy day of obligation for Roman Catholics in Ireland. The date of the feast is occasionally moved by church authorities due to March 17 falling in Holy Week; this last happened in 1940, when Saint Patrick’s Day was observed on 3 April in order to avoid it coinciding with Palm Sunday, and will happen again in 2008, when it shall be held on 15 March to avoid the second day in Holy Week.[3]
Saint Patrick’s Day is celebrated worldwide by Irish people and increasingly by many of non-Irish descent (usually in Australia, North America, and Ireland), hence the phrase, “Everyone wants to be Irish on St. Patrick’s Day.” Celebrations are generally themed around all things green and Irish; both Christians and non-Christians celebrate the secular version of the holiday by wearing green or orange, eating Irish food and/or green foods, imbibing Irish drink, and attending parades.
It was also on St. Patrick’s Day that Ireland’s national cricket team pulled off one of the biggest cricketing shocks by defeating top seeded Pakistan and eliminating them from the tournament in only their 2nd World Cup match. With that victory Ireland made it through to the next round of the 2007 Cricket World Cup.
The St. Patrick’s Day parade in Dublin, Ireland is part of a five-day festival; over 500,000 people attended the 2006 parade. The largest St. Patrick’s Day parade is held in Chicago and it is watched by over 2 million spectators. The St. Patrick’s Day parade was first held in Boston in 1737, organized by the Charitable Irish Society. New York’s celebration began on 17 March 1762 when Irish soldiers in the British army marched through the city. Ireland’s cities all hold their own parades and festivals. These cities include Dublin, Cork, Belfast, Derry, Galway, Kilkenny, Limerick, and Waterford. Parades also take place in other Irish towns and villages.
Source: Wikipedia
Chinese New Year
| February 7, 2008 |
Chinese New Year or Spring Festival, or the Lunar New Year, is the most important of the traditional Chinese holidays. It is an important holiday in East Asia. The festival traditionally begins on the first day of the first lunar month in the Chinese calendar and ends on the 15th; this day is called the Lantern festival.
Chinese New Year’s Eve is known as Chúxī . Chu literally means “change” and xi means “Eve”.
Celebrated in areas with large populations of ethnic Chinese, Chinese New Year is considered a major holiday for the Chinese and has had a strong influence on the new year celebrations of its geographic neighbours, as well as cultures with whom the Chinese have had extensive interaction. These include Koreans, Mongolians, Nepalese, Bhutanese, Vietnamese, and formerly the Japanese before 1873. In Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand, and other countries with significant Chinese populations, Chinese New Year is also celebrated, largely by overseas Chinese, but it is not part of the traditional culture of these countries.
Source: Wikipedia
Republic Day (India)
| January 26, 2008 |
The Republic Day of India is a national holiday of India to mark the transition of India from a British Dominion to a republic on January 26, 1950 and the adoption of the Constitution of India. It is one of the three national holidays in India. This is not to be confused with the Independence Day on August 15th.
Although India obtained its independence on August 15, 1947, the Constitution of India came into effect only on January 26, 1950. During the transition period from 1947 to 1950, King George VI was the head of state. C. Rajagopalachari served as the Governor-General of India during this period. Following January 26, 1950, Rajendra Prasad was elected as the president of India.
To mark the importance of this occasion, every year a grand parade is held in the capital, New Delhi, from the Raisina Hill near the Rashtrapati Bhavan (President’s Palace), along the Rajpath, past India Gate and on to the historic Red Fort. The different regiments of the Army, the Navy and the Air Force march past in all their finery and official decorations. The President of India who is the Commander-in-Chief of the Indian Armed Forces, takes the salute. The parade also includes vibrant displays and floats and traditionally ends with a flypast by Indian Air Force jets.
Source: Wikipedia
New Year’s Day
| January 1, 2008 |
The New Year is an event that happens when a culture celebrates the end of one year and the beginning of the next year. Cultures that measure yearly calendars all have New Year celebrations.
January 1st is one of the most common modern dates of celebration. See below:
- 1 January: The first official day of the year in the Gregorian calendar used by most countries.
- In the Eastern Orthodox Church, the civil New Year falls on 14 January (1 January in the Julian Calendar). Many in the countries where Eastern Orthodoxy predominates celebrate both the Gregorian and Julian New Year holidays, with the Gregorian day celebrated as a civic holiday, and the Julian date as the “Old New Year“, a religious holiday. The Church’s own liturgical calendar begins on September 1, thereby proceeding annually from the celebration of Jesus‘ birth in the winter (Christmas). through his death and resurrection in the spring (Pascha / Easter), to his Ascension in the summer, and the assumption of his mother (Dormition of the Theotokos / Virgin Mary) in the fall.
- Note: Eight of the twelve biggest Eastern Orthodox Churches have adopted the Revised Julian calendar administratively and the civic and religious holidays match. The orthodox population of Bulgaria, Cyprus, Egypt, Greece, Poland, Romania, Syria and Turkey celebrate the New Year on January 1. The orthodox churches of Georgia, Jerusalem, Russia and Serbia still use the Julian Calendar.
Source: Wikipedia
