STEP (South Tyrone Empowerment Programme) was formed in 1997 and was born from the need to ensure that the first tranche of Peace money would be spent in the most appropriate way both geographically and in terms of need in South Tyrone. The peace process had resulted in significant European funding and the local councils were given an amount of money, with Dungannon & South Tyrone receiving approximately £1.5million. They were tasked with putting together a partnership representative of the local community and then develop a programme of work.
The community drivers on this partnership pushed towards a community consultation on the ground to see what people in the community felt was needed – the programme of activity that came out of this was costed at £325,000. The Area Partnership, STAP, looked at what needed to be done and there was no organisation in the area that could do it so they looked at a number of local community organisations to see if they could work in partnership, could do the work in an empowering way and had the capacity to do so. Effectively a network of 8 organisations become the key players such as Galbally Community Association, Moygashel Community Association, Clogher Valley, Willowbank etc., STEP was a programme of work to build the infrastructure and develop the capacity of these existing organisations to utilise the Peace money effectively in the community and empower that community. With PEACE funding from PROTEUS Eight community development workers were employed, one located in each organisation with a central co-ordinator and administrator located in Dungannon town, funded by Area Partnership.