Greetings from Northern Ireland! I am now over half way through my term of service here with the Young Adult Volunteer Program and wanted to update you all on what I’ve been doing since I arrived last September. I am working with Harmony Hill Presbyterian Church, in Lisburn, which is just to the south of Belfast. Here at Harmony Hill, I work with their Parents and Toddlers group on Wednesdays and Fridays, help teach in two Sunday Schools—both the Harmony Hill Sunday School for 11-15 year olds, and assist with the Lisburn Inter-Church Sunday School, which serves children and young adults with special needs, and I am also a leader in Flame, the youth fellowship at Harmony Hill. Most of my time, however, is spent with Harmony Hill’s main outreach program, a non-sectarian youth drop in center called The Base. The Base, while based in Harmony Hill, is firmly rooted in a non-sectarian approach to youth work, and is open to and attended by youth from both the Unionist (wishing to remain part of the United Kingdom) and Nationalist (want to become part of a united Ireland) communities, and, importantly, is also supported by the local Roman Catholic and Church of Ireland parishes. This cross community work is of critical importance in Northern Ireland now, because, while great progress towards peace has been made, a peaceful future in Northern Ireland is still far from certain. The principal paramilitaries on both sides have now disarmed, but there are fringe groups still active. These groups are generally reviled by both communities, but there is a fear that they may prove successful at recruiting amongst youth, especially amongst those too young to remember the worst of the Troubles. Despite the advances made, Northern Ireland is still a very divided society. In many places, so called “Peace Lines” divide Nationalist and Loyalist communities. These walls were first erected in the early 1970s as a means of stemming violence by making it more difficult for assailants from one community to get to the other, but continue to increase in height, length and number today. The walls vary greatly in nature, some are large and imposing, others are mostly wire fence, with plantings attempting to conceal them.
This wall to the left is a section of what is possibly the most famous wall in Belfast, the one that divides the Shankill (Unionist) from the Falls (Nationalist) neighborhoods. This wall is something like 20-25 feet high, and, as you can see, has been extended with wire mesh above the older concrete.
One of the great difficulties faced in Northern Ireland is the way in which the walls reinforce themselves. 50% of the population lives in an area where more than 90% share their religious and political background. In 2002, 68% of people between 18 and 25 reported having never had a meaningful conversation with someone from the other community. Just 5% of children go to an integrated school. In this context, bringing the youth from both communities together is of critical importance—as my sister once said: “it’s a lot easier to hate someone you don’t know.”This is not to say that I am not still having fun. I’ve had a wonderful time taking The Base youth on various outings including a trip to “Planet Fun,” which is similar to the carnival portion of the Dogwood Festival, dressing up as a shepherd for the Carol Service at Christmas, and going on occasional retreats with the other PC(USA) volunteers working in Northern Ireland, especially when we went to see the Giant’s Causeway on the North Coast.
