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A south Armagh woman has been shortlisted as a finalist in the 2024 Social Enterprise Awards which are being held this Friday in Belfast.
Mary McCrink, 27, an Art Therapist with social enterprise Changing Cycles has been selected for the 'Young Person In Social Enterprise' category. Social enterprise Changing Cycles was founded in 2020 with a vision of a world where the cyclical nature of women and girls is understood, respected and integrated into everyday life.
Mary began her career as a social worker but transitioned to art therapy following an Art Therapy course at the University of Ulster. It's something she always wanted to do from a very young age. She has also worked in Camp America with children for several years.
Following the finishing of her studies Mary was looking to forward her career and got talking to Joanne Callan the founder of Changing Cycles "I still knew I wanted to do art therapy, but I was also quite drawn to doing education in schools, particularly around women's health and sex education and things. I was quite passionate about it. We just ended up having this conversation around all my passions. And then Joanne said 'oh I'm actually starting a social enterprise called Changing Cycles in two weeks time'."
At that time Joanne Callan was starting her Changing Cycles mentorship programme and Mary came on board, someone who was closer to the issues that younger people and women in their 20s were experiencing.
Joanne explained "Although I could look back on it reflectively, I was very aware that my world in my teens and 20s was vastly different, and that indeed has continued to change. For me, the definite appeal of having Mary on board was her experience from social work, her experience working with youth and vulnerable youth as well, so that we could then shape our programmes to be inclusive of that, to have Mary's input. I would have an idea of a programme that we would maybe offer to schools, but then being able to bounce that off Mary, tease it out, and say how do we tweak this to make sure that it's an inclusive programme, that it's reaching young people where they're at, not only because of her own personal age and experience and all of that kind of space, but also her experience through working with teenagers. I would work with children and young people, but generally more primary school age, whereas this was able to bring in Mary's experience across a broad range of ages."
Explaining her art therapy work Mary said "I work with lots of different clients, mostly young people. It's a way for them to express themselves, consciously and subconsciously. My practice would be trauma informed and person centered, it's very client led, so I look at what they bring to the session. It's a form of psychotherapy that uses art as a form of expression."
Mary coming on board really rounded off the social enterprise team. Joanne said "We have Suriya, who is of Indian background, living in Newry many years. We then have Mary, who brings in the youth. Sarah's a mum, and then my experiences.
"We're reaching different backgrounds here and I think within our space we tick quite a lot of the diversity angles, even though there's only four of us. We've quite a diverse range of backgrounds and experiences and that was really, really important, when I looked at the dynamic of who had came together, I thought actually, we can really make this work. So when the opportunity came up to nominate Mary through the Social Enterprise Awards we all put our input in, as mentors."
Being a relatively new social enterprise they are all thrilled at Mary's nomination and are looking forward to the final this Friday night, 8 November in the Crowne Plaza, Belfast. The event is run by Social Enterprise NI.
