About Us
Claiming Our Future is a national broad based non-party-political network. It comprises individuals and organizations from a range of civil society sectors including, in particular, the community, environmental, global justice, cultural and trade union sectors. It was established in 2010.
Claiming Our Future aims to promote and make real the values of equality, environmental sustainability, participation, accountability and solidarity.
Claiming Our Future works to:
Develop and contribute to the thinking to shape a future Ireland based on these values and to the thinking on the future shape of, challenges facing, and directions for civil society.
Campaign proactively on key issues that contribute to realizing this future Ireland.
Build participation, at local and national levels, in shaping this thinking and developing these campaigns and build cross-sectoral forms of cooperation in this.
Claiming Our Future has worked to enable national and local deliberation on the priority policy themes identified at its inaugural event and to build campaigns to advance these themes.
This work has focused, in particular, on the policy themes of:
Income equality.
Developing an economy for society.
Political reform.
It has campaigned to challenge austerity policies and to promote a new value base for the annual Budgetary process of Government. This has focused on rebalancing the Buget to secure a greater focus on taxing the wealthy, securing the public services and social welfare provision that is central to the well being of those experiencing inequality and poverty, and providing a stimulus for employment creation.
Claiming Our Future seeks to stimulate new forms of organisation in civil society that can better respond to the current situation. It aims to organise across the different sectors of civil society and to enable an empowered civil society out of such a cross-sectoral approach. It seeks to be a stimulus for change for a civil society that is better able to respond to a context of deepening inequality, political unresponsiveness and a culture dominated by fear and pessimism.
Claiming Our Future seeks to promote new forms of civil society action by directing the energies and strengths of civil society to engaging, educating and convincing the general public of the need for alternative approaches to the crises faced by Irish society and for new goals to be established for the type of society that should emerge from these crises. This should enhance the levels of support for a more equal and environmentally sustainable society and the emergence of a new and more forceful demand on the political system for transformative change in Irish society.
Also, check out this interesting (slightly dated) article from Central Group member Mary Murphy from 2012 to learn a bit more about how it all started and an analysis of the challenges Irish civil society faces in participating in political debate about ideas and its capacity to generate real and credible alternatives.
Cover image for Citizens Voices May 22 2012