Text says, 'To hope is to give yourself to the future - and that commitment to the future is what makes the present inhabitable.' - Rebecca Solnit. Below is a hand stitching a broken heart together.

I know it’s hard to feel hopeful at the moment

So I want to remind you of our powerful community of people who rise to meet every challenge we face.

Uplift members from all over Ireland are leading on important campaigns, making headlines and holding decision-makers to account.

Our 340,000 members play a vital role in our community – fair play for all you do to keep us going – so I want to share how our community helps us win campaigns every day, how much we’ve achieved together in the past few months and why we’re so hopeful for what’s to come.

But, all this work needs to be paid for somehow – we are a fivers and tenners movement, and get no money from the Government or big business. That’s why we need your support. Will you chip in to help us keep winning important campaigns?

Yes, I’ll chip in a fiver

Helping people fleeing war in Ukraine 🇺🇦

No matter who we are or where we come from, we all deserve to feel safe, to be able to put our children to bed, knowing that they will wake up in a secure home. Nearly 2,000 of us signed a massive open letter demanding that this government make empty houses in Ireland available to those fleeing war.
Fair play to all of us who chipped in so that our sister organisation in Romania, DeClic, was able to send two trucks of food and supplies to Ukraine. We helped pay for the transportation costs, plus the huge bill for the food, power generators and medical supplies worth €65k. [1]

We joined our sister organisations across Europe to successfully make it easier for all people fleeing war to find safety in Europe. [2]
Google and Meta (Facebook) have their headquarters in Ireland. In March we campaigned successfully to stop them from allowing Russia state propaganda and disinformation to be shared online. Our eye-catching mobile billboard and protests grabbed international attention.
Having the tools to organise together to support refugees arriving here is vital. That’s why we’ve built the Ukraine Local Solidarity Platform as a hub that helps connect and organise local groups. Now we’re teaming up with Change X and Open Community to help make sure host families and local communities get the support they need to step up. [3]

Fighting for a secular and public National Maternity Hospital

Uplift members have been doubling down on the campaign to stop our new National Maternity Hospital from being handed to a private company with a Catholic ethos. [4] Together, we’ve kept the campaign in the headlines with eye-catching petition delivery at Taoiseach’s office in Cork. Politicians have been in the media saying that their inboxes were flooded with emails, their phones were ringing off the hook, and this week our legal team has produced a powerful legal analysis that has the government in a spin. [5]

Our worst fears were confirmed when Government Ministers approved a deal, handing over our National Maternity Hospital to a private company. We are devastated by the terrible decision but we’re not giving up, and we’ll continue the fight for safe reproductive healthcare in Ireland.

Campaigning for livable communities 🏡

Our community is connecting campaigns and groups across the country to oppose unfair planning decisions and fight for livable communities.

From the amazing campaign that stopped a hotel from being built on the famous Cobblestone pub, to saving the beloved Tolka park – there’s a lot to feel hopeful about when we work together. [6]

If you want to get involved by helping to build our fighting fund for better planning rules, chip in here.

Daniel won!

Only months ago, Daniel started his petition on MyUplift for the Personal Assistance (PA) hours. He faced “a living nightmare” of the threat of being put into a care home at the age of 24. With the support of our amazing community together we got behind Daniel helping him get the support he needs to live a fulfilled life. [7]

You’ve been busy with your own campaigns

Hundreds of people across Ireland, like you and me, who want to make a change in their communities, are running their own successful campaigns. Thanks to MyUplift, anyone can start a campaign quickly and for free.

Here’s a roundup of some of the standout campaigns that are winning:

Getting investigations carried out into deaths in nursing homes during Covid-19;
The right to statutory sick leave for most workers;
The sale of the Sean McDermott Street Magdalene Laundry site was stopped, and can now be preserved as a Site of Conscience;
Long Covid services at St. James’s Hospital are being maintained and the campaign has expanded to other hospitals;
International doctors and their families who are making Ireland home won’t face so many hurdles.
Stalking is to become a criminal offence;
Capel Street in Dublin is to be pedestrianised;
The #SafeAccessZones Bill is gaining support – soon we hope it will be easier to access safe abortion care. [8]
Basking sharks are now a protected species in Ireland. [9]

If you have an issue you feel strongly about that will improve people’s lives in Ireland, why don’t you start a campaign on MyUplift today?

Our people-powered forest is growing! 🌳

Our people-powered forest has started. This Spring 800 trees were planted in West Cork, thanks to the help of Future Forests. [10] Later in the year we’ll start again and plant more trees on Uplift members’ land next Spring.

More than 700 of us created our People-Powered Plan for Trees and Forests that was submitted to the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine who asked for the public’s opinion on the future of forests in Ireland. [11]

The good news is that 2,800 Uplift members across Ireland will be receiving their bee seeds to plant in the next week – just in time to give our buzzy friends the food they need throughout the Summer. Please send photos of your wildflowers!

We Say No to the Mow

Together we are taking part in No Mow May. Do you want to get involved in your area?

You can find a group to join here: Say No to the Mow: Local Groups

Changes to the Staff Team

It is with great excitement that we welcome two new members to the team. Brian as our new Campaigns Director and Seamus as Lead Campaigner on Housing and Climate. But sadly we say farewell to Frances, Uplift’s Tech Director, and Niamh, Uplift’s Communications Support Worker. We wish them both all the best in the future and are so grateful for the huge contributions they’ve made to our community. [12]

Greater than fear

The shocking murders of Aidan Moffitt and Michael Snee in April upset our community deeply. As we’ve done before, we wanted to show our solidarity and love. That’s why we sent a powerful message through a full-page ad in the Irish Examiner to show that together we are greater than fear.

There’s so much more to share and talk about, but there’s only so much we can squeeze into an email.

Fair play to all of us who are helping to build an Ireland we can be proud of. We’re making a real difference. Together, we’re building hope for the future by connecting regular people like you and me and taking powerful action for an Ireland we can be proud of.

But it’s not possible to do all this without being able to pay the bills. So, {{first_name}}, will you chip in so we can do even more? To keep rising to the many challenges we all face, your help is needed. Uplift doesn’t accept money from the Government or big business. We are a fivers and tenners movement – and it’s people like you that keep us fiercely independent.

That’s why I’m asking you if you’ll chip in right now – so that we can keep campaigning on the things that matter most: