The Name:

Skainos (skã’ nõs) (Noun, Greek Origin)

1. Tent; 2. Presence, dwelling; 3. frailty, weakness, as of the human body.

The Skainos Project is a flagship redevelopment scheme on a brownfield site in the Ballymacarrett area of East Belfast.  When completed, the Skainos Project will be inclusive of the whole community, where people can gather, eat meals together, worship, and find help for health, employment, education, childcare, housing, and spiritual concerns.

Derived from a biblical Greek word and rooted firmly in Christian tradition and history, the name Skainos speaks of the importance of practical engagement with a community by figuratively pitching a tent in its midst, and it hints at the notion of hospitality and the extended family.  An alternative meaning for the word is as a description of the frailty of human beings. It stands therefore as a useful counterbalance to the temptation to focus solely on new buildings to the detriment of serving people.

The Skainos Project is about the future. It’s about meeting the present and prospective needs of this community.  It’s about building a partnership of public agencies, private bodies, community groups and church and harnessing that partnership for the benefit of East Belfast. It’s about integrating care and developmental support for children, families, young people, people who are homeless or unemployed, and the elderly. And it’s about providing shared space for people from all backgrounds and communities in East Belfast.

Concept

The Skainos Project is an urban regeneration project in inner East Belfast providing shared space for community transformation and renewal.

Central to the development is a new street in inner East Belfast, untouched by the history of the Troubles, with the capacity to be genuinely shared space. This civic square is capable of hosting open air events like concerts, farmer’s markets and christmas fairs, and will be overlooked by new, mixed tenure housing, thereby giving the square a living presence round the clock.

The Newtownards Road frontage of the development will feature new retail and commercial office space. Inside, and fronting to the square will be the work of East Belfast Mission, including youth and family services and counselling as well as a community hall and auditorium, and a cafe which spills onto the square.

The auditorium will serve as the worship space for the Methodist Congregation at East Belfast Mission.

East Belfast Mission and Oaklee Housing Association will also develop a replacement Hosford House catering for 26 people who find themselves homeless Elsewhere on the site Age NI and Belfast Metropolitan College will provide new services in care for older people and education.

EBM’s social economy programme will also operate a day nursery in the new development.