Jolita Jarutiene
Jolita came to NI in 2005 from Lithuania to work as a clinical research scientist. Around the same time she started painting and took a National Diploma in Art and Design at the South Eastern Regional College. She has been painting and exhibiting ever since and in 2008 one of her paintings was chosen as a winning entry for the Lisburn Historic Quarter Arts Group Postcard competition.
In 2009 as Ambassador of Vilnius (2009 European Capital of Culture) in Northern Ireland and in conjunction with the millennium jubilee commemorating the naming of Lithuania, Jolita worked with the Artists Association of Lithuania to create an exhibition realising the historical and contemporary study of Baltic identity and creativity. The exhibition was held at the Island Arts Centre, Lisburn.
Jolita has been liaising for us with Patrick McDonald from NIAMH, our chosen charity.
Here is some information……..
Niamh is a leading mental health and wellbeing charity that delivers a range of services which focus on mental health recovery, health and social care policy, training and counselling for employees across the island of Ireland via its 3 areas of service activity, Beacon, Carecall and Inspire.
Beacon provides 24/7support services to people with experience of mental illness through supported housing, day support and advocacy services. This is the largest division in the Niamh family and it has grown substantially over the past few years.
Beacon’s 15 day support schemes located throughout Northern Ireland provided a range of recovery-focused programmes to over 1300 people every year and its 28 supported housing services provided accommodation for 430 people. Its advocacy services dealt with almost 6,000 requests for advocacy support in the last year alone and floating support has recently provided services for a further 39 people.
Carecall provides therapeutic support through workplace-based wellbeing services such as employee assistance programmes (EAP) and counselling, and training and preventative services in a wide variety of contexts including schools, colleges and workplaces.
Last year alone, Carecall delivered just over 32,000 counselling sessions to nearly 6500 people and made their services available to 566,000 people, including 185,000 students. Over 2500 delegates attended Carecall training courses in 2013/14.
Inspire provides support for approximately 90 people with learning disabilities in various locations across Northern Ireland. It is the newest Niamh service, having commenced in October 2013, and extends the reach of Niamh beyond mental health in order to also support people with a learning disability.
Rosie McClelland Art 