'My Mammy and Me' exhibition goes on display in Derry park

The photographic exhibition, titled 'My Mammy and Me' shows local mothers and grandmothers with their children and grandchildren. It is one of a series of exhibitions by Féile with parents and families who attend Edenballymore SureStart. The first exhibition featured ‘lockdown babies’, where babies born during the Covid pandemic were pictured outside their front doors and other exhibitions included ‘Pride families’ – children born to parents in a same-sex relationship – and a dad’s exhibition for Father’s Day in Brandywell Park.

Bernardine Donohoe from Edenballymore SureStart said: "We’re based in the Old Library Trust in Creggan and we cover the Edenballymore area, which is the Bogside, Brandywell, Creggan, the Fountain and the Strand. We provide services for children and families antenatally until nursery.

"We do antenatal programmes, parenting, two-year-old programme and other things and we’re funded by the Department for Communities. Every year there’s around 200 births in our area and, as you’re registering your pregnancy, the midwife will ask if it’s okay to register your details with SureStart. We then contact people and so antenatal and postnatal visits and we do hypnobirthing and other programmes.

"We have 1000 families registered, so, we asked the families if they would like to be involved and they put themselves forward. They get a professional photograph out of it too which is lovely. We try to go to the park close to where the families live so their photograph is in their own park. It’s just building community and for children to be a visible part of their community.

"The parents all really loved it and the children loved seeing their photos in their local park. We’ve got a lot of female staff, our bus driver is male and maybe one or two others so we thought it would be hard to find men to take part but they were queuing up and we had grandas, daddies, uncles and brothers so it went down really well.”

"We’re always working in partnership with Féile and it’s great to engage families. You often don’t see families a the forefront but parents come out for these exhibitions and it enables them to engage more in future.”

Helen Ní Bhaoighill is featured in the exhibition with her son Ezra. She said: “Me and wee Ezra have benefited greatly from all the connections made at SureStart. I have to admit, I was completely overwhelmed by a sudden rush of emotion seeing our picture up on the railing!. What a wonderful way to showcase local mammies for doing the most difficult job of all!”

The exhibition is displayed on the outside fence of Bull Park on Marlborough Terrace, with pictures by Jim McCafferty.