Community Life (2023 - 2023)

Barra Best is in Londonderry, where he learns about the group of carers who meet to knit tiny hats for newborn babies at the city’s Altnagelvin Hospital. Cate Conway tries her hand at oval car racing with the Ballymoney club enthusiasts. Jo Scott meets the people who’ve found a place to belong at Belfast’s Street Soccer, and Anne Marie Wallace proves she’s game for a laugh when she takes on the stand-up challenge. In the weekly appeal on behalf of local charities, Vinny Hurrell tries his hand at being a guide for the NI Blind Golf Association.

Barra Best presents from Dungannon, a town whose population has been bolstered by the arrival of people from East Timor in recent years. Jennie Browne meets some of the newest residents and hears how they’re influencing life in the county Tyrone town, but also how important their collective cultural identity remains. She attends a family baptism where 500 guests are invited. Barra has a trick up his sleeve when he joins the members of a circus school for older people. Connor Phillips is with the dads who meet up to support one another and Cate Conway is in her pet heaven when she attends a competition for the furriest of furry cats. In the weekly appeal on behalf of local charities, Vinny Hurrell hears how Aware helps people struggling with depression and poor mental health.

We meet the vets who give up their free time to look after the dogs of homeless people. Anne Marie Wallace spends a night with the Street Paws team who make sure these much-loved pets are kept in tip-top condition. Then there’s the successful barber who, despite his tough childhood, is giving a hand up to young people where he grew up. Cate Conway finds out that Jay Millar’s barbering classes are helping turn young lives around in north Belfast. Jo Scott dons her runners to try to keep up with Newry’s answer to the Road Runner, who’s been lapping people in the town for seven decades. Not to be outdone, Barra Best tries his hand at medieval sword fighting with a group on Belfast’s Donegall Pass. In the weekly appeal on behalf of local charities, Vinny Hurrell is at CAN’s brand new purpose-built centre which is revolutionising the lives of young people and adults with learning difficulties.