Our mission is to is to achieve positive change for the marginalised communities we support and to champion the vital role of community and voluntary organisations in the city of Cork and where relevant regionally and nationally. We aim to achieve this through:

• Using our strength as an alliance and our collective expertise on local need and inequality,
• Working across organisational boundaries and contributing to interagency and collaborative mechanisms in the city of Cork
• Maintaining a clear focus on social inclusion and equality issues.

We maintain a clear focus on social inclusion and equality issues and are particularly guided by the 9 equality grounds provided for under the Equal Status Acts 2000-2018.

• Gender and gender identity
• Civil status
• Family status
• Sexual orientation
• Religion and belief
• Age
• Disability
• Race and ethnicity
• Being a member of the Traveller community

We also focus on a tenth ground of Socio-economic status.

Some member organisations of CESCA work to address inequality for specific communities including LGBT+, Travellers, people with disabilities and migrants. Many others work to community development principles providing support to the diverse communities they serve.

CESCA is innovative because of our ability to work collaboratively across organisational boundaries to achieve impact on equality issues within the city. Through our unique membership we have the opportunity to not only work together on progressing equality issues in the city but can equally support innovative projects having a significant impact for those who experience disadvantage.