Irish Hospice Foundation wants to inspire and support the work of groups, organisations or individuals who wish to mark in some tangible way their response to the universal realities of dying, death, and bereavement.

The IHF Seed Grants scheme offers communities across Ireland multiple ways to process the impact of death, dying, grief, and more general losses. The Seed Grants support groups, organisations and individuals looking for creative ways to do this. Priority will be given to creative initiatives that take innovative approaches to reflection and remembrance.  

Seed  Grants aim to help start new local art projects, or to support existing projects gain momentum - this may involve artists, crafts people, or digital-coders. It may be a group or individual who has a good idea.  It might be something you’ve been planning for ages or a new notion.

It might be you want to mark the loss of a colleague, or the impact on your Care Team. You could be health care workers, youth workers, creative artists, civil servants, film-makers, poets, school groups or anyone. Everyone is affected at some point in their lives.

Seed Grants may be used in a variety of ways, for example (but not limited to) supporting: 

– A youth project or school assisting young people to explore what dying, death, and bereavement means to them through the medium of art,  photography, music, film, or story-telling. 
– An event aimed at increasing awareness and knowledge about “healthy” ways of coping with loss and grief. 
– Individual(s) and groups seeking ways through the arts to provide social, emotional, and practical support to those living with a life-threatening illness or experiencing bereavement. 
– Creation of songs, spoken word poems or laments, of joy filled memorialisation and the celebration of a life lived, that help your community process loss. 
– Responding to specific loss and grief, of a child, a life partner, a beloved pet – all impactful, specific and different.
– Exploring these areas with people living with a cognitive disability or neuro-degenerative disease like Alzheimer’s.
– Conversation or commemoration in and across the broad and diverse migratory and displaced communities of Ireland.
– LGBTQ aware end-of-life practices  and unique challenges.
– Climate change and resilience, loss, and grief. 
– Awareness in healthcare practice of cultural diversity and end-of-life ritual and belief. 
– “Messiness” – how meeting death in all its unknowable can be articulated.

Visit the link below for full details.