Integrated Education Fund

Event Date: 16th March, 2012

We’re on the home stretch as we gear up for 2012’s major fundraising event – the Integrated Education Fund Gala Ball on the 16th March.

The highlight of a year of commemorations, the Gala at the Europa Hotel in Belfast marks 30 years of integrated schools in Northern Ireland. The party will bring celebrity guests, music, food and entertainment together with the Fund’s friends and supporters in a dazzling evening of celebration. We’re hoping as many of our friends and supporters can join us as we mark an important birthday and look forward to a shared future for our young people.

Integrated education began thanks to the efforts of a small group of parents whose dedicated campaigning led to the opening of Lagan College. Parental demand has brought us to a total of 62 integrated schools in Northern Ireland, with many first-choice applicants turned away each year.

The Fund’s Increasing Places in Integrated Schools (IPIS) grant scheme seeks to meet this demand by supporting the growth of integrated schools and colleges – we have already pledged £500,000 to projects designed to offer more children integrated education, but we need much more to meet the overwhelming demand.

The Integrated Education Fund was founded 20 years ago to offer financial support for new and transforming integrated schools – so it’s also time to celebrate our anniversary! The event on 16 March will include live music from the marvellous soul and jazz singer Merinda Rosenberg, and we have been offered some fabulous prizes to auction on the night, including a private lunch with internationally acclaimed author Maeve Binchy, a week in a magnificent villa in Mallorca, courtesy of anchor and host of Bloomberg Television Andrea Catherwood and the chance to join one of Northern Ireland’s best loved actors, Jimmy Ellis at a restaurant in London.

• Click here to read more about some of our super live auction prizes up for grabs on the night and to put in an early bid.

It’s thanks to the generosity of donors like these that the Fund can continue its work in offering young people the opportunity to engage in meaningful sharing across the divisions which still exist. Some students will be joining us at the Gala Ball and we really do appreciate the help and support we have from so many schools and individual volunteers.

Tickets for the 30th Anniversary Gala Ball on the 16th March can be obtained from Brian or Gemma at the IEF: 028 9033 0031 or gemma@ief.org.uk / brian@ief.org.uk