Cllr Anna Rooney Wins Top European Award

Cllr Anna Rooney was been honoured with a European award for her work in the area of cultural integration. The award was presented to Anna at the ALDE Leader Awards ceremony in Brussels last month. Cllr Rooney won in the category of Engagement with Citizens at Local Level.

The awards were for representatives of the ALDE group of parties across the EU. Anna received the award both for her own personal success in becoming integrated in Irish society after she emigrated from Russia ten years ago, but especially for her impressive and tireless work with community groups, setting an example for other immigrants to engage with the local community and for building bridges across community divides.

In her welcoming address Flo Clucas, President of the ALDE said there was a huge amount of excellent work that is being carried out in communities around Europe to involve citizens in the decisions that affect them, to make their lives better, to build bridges and new partnerships.

Since 2001, Anna has been involved with various different voluntary groups and she found it easy to communicate with people from all backgrounds. As a result she was approached by different groups to take part in many projects on communication and integration both on a work and social level. Anna is regularly called upon on a personal level to assist people who have limited language skills in English to deal with official forms and applications and with local banks, businesses and social services. She became involved with the Citizens Information Offices as a volunteer.

Anna began mediation work in local businesses and factories, helping employers and managers communicate with their new immigrant workers. Involvement in the local group of the Chernobyl project was natural, given her background, and Anna also helps parents who are attempting to adopt or have adopted children from Russia.

She worked with many public and private sector organisations and schools, delivering solutions both to host community and foreign nationals. This has involved working with a wide spectrum of nationalities, Russian, Lithuanian, Latvian, Polish, Moldavian, Ukrainian, Chinese, Pakistani, Germans, Slovakian, Sri Lankans, Georgian, Armenian, Indian, Phillipino, Brazilian and many other African nationalities.

Anna extended her thanks to Benny Kiernan who nominated her to run for election last year, Bernie Duffy, the Chairperson of Monaghan Comhairle Dáil who nominated her for the Leader award, Emer Brennan, and Minister Brendan Smith. Gratitude was also expressed to Margaret Conlon TD, Pat The Cope Gallagher MEP, his secretary Eamon Farrell, all the Fianna Fáil councillors in Co Monaghan, Clones town councillors, and the staff of Clones Town Council.

She also thanked the Fianna Fáil party overall, the general public who voted for Anna in last year’s election and Monaghan VEC for all the help and support received. Finally, Anna expressed her gratitude to her family and friends for their encouragement and belief in her. “I could not have achieved as much as I have without such a strong team behind me,” she concluded.

Read the Press Release from the ALDE(pdf format).

Top Photo - Flo Clucas, President of the ALDE, Cllr Anna Rooney, and Annemie Neyts President of the ELDR.

2nd Photo - Cllr Anna Rooney and Cllr David Grant.