Carligh from Ardoyne shares her story:
‘When I was growing up, I went to Holy Cross Girls Primary School on the Ardoyne Road. There were a lot of interfaces with Catholics and Protestants and my parents were afraid. We weren't allowed to leave the school grounds because of the troubles we were facing even though we were so young. We weren't allowed to walk home and had to be brought home by bus or be collected from school. So growing up, there was always a lot of negativity in my life towards Protestants and being a kid I didn't understand.
Whenever I joined the R-CITY programme, I was able to meet a lot of new people from the other side of the community and I realized that we are literally the exact same. We do have our differences, but we're so alike. I've built so many good relationships and I've been able to go on international trips. Now I'm going on to be a volunteer, working with younger groups and I’ll get to know more people from different communities.
I've also met friends from outside of the programme. So, if I'm walking down the Shankill Road, I'll see people that I know and I stop and have a conversation with them and that makes me feel somewhat safe. Sometimes people don't feel safe going into a Protestant area, but I do. I’ve made so many friendships and relationships and taking part in this programme has really made me come out of my comfort zone. Sometimes your parents would be a wee bit ‘iffy’ about you being in other people's houses, especially from a different community, but because of how safe I feel being over in areas like this, I think it's eased the minds of my parents as well.
One of the main things that needs to change is the peace gates. You go down to Lanark Way and you can't get through the gates after 10 o'clock. You go down to Flax Street and you can't get through the peace gate after half-nine. It’s a way to cut off people from fighting but it isn't really doing anything but making more interfaces.
I’d love to see people coming together to the fact that the peace gates don't have to be there, and we don't have to find alternative routes if we need to get somewhere.
To be honest, it just makes a lot more trouble for everyone, just because some people don't know how to be mature.
Taking part in these programmes is going to help more people come face-to-face and maybe in two, three or four years there are going to be more programmes and they'll be open to more communities.’
Ross from the Shankill shares his story:
‘Whenever I was growing up, there was an ‘us and them’ mentality. I went to a Protestant school and just up the road there was a Catholic school. Getting to and from school was a big hassle, and I had to get the special bus to keep myself safe. There were all these negative thoughts towards the other side of the community. I was very naïve and didn't really look into it too much. Whenever I heard about R-CITY, I thought it was a youth group to go to and make a few friends. I didn't really have a clue about good relations or how deep it would go. I joined when I was about 16 and since then I've been exposed to different beliefs and cultures. I’ve learnt it doesn't matter because, at the end of the day, we’re all human and we’re all the same.
I believe it’s doing Belfast a world of good, from the camps to the programmes, international opportunities and the qualifications.
It offers young people so many opportunities that may not have been available 20 years ago.
It's made me so much more open-minded. I'm not as judgmental as I was about certain religions, beliefs and cultures. I'm so much more open because I’ve started to get passionate about it. I want to learn more because we may be different, but that's a good thing. If we were all the same it'd be quite a boring world.
It's very hard to break the hostile reactions but I think T:BUC and the programmes they have provided are definitely showing the path and slowly but surely I think we'll get to the end of that race.’
Eve from Ardoyne shares her story:
‘I grew up in an integrated primary school so from a very young age I mixed with Catholics and Protestants and I didn't see a difference. When it came to P7, I wanted to move to a Protestant secondary school until my mummy said, ‘No, you can't go there.’ I didn't understand why, because all my friends were going. It wasn't until I came down to R-CITY I started hearing, ‘You need to be careful going down the Shankill. You need to watch yourself. I'll pick you up. I'll drop you there.’ I realised this is actually a big deal.
The main thing that sticks out for me is looking into the different stereotypes, like one of them keeps their toaster in the cupboard! It allows you to break down those stereotypes and barriers. It allows you to respect each other more. Maybe I don't understand your view but I'm going to respect it. It lets you see that we're not really different. We might have different views but anyone from your own community can have a different view. It doesn't have to be just because they live somewhere that has a different flag.
Now, if I'm saying I’m going to the Shankill, my mummy will say ‘Right, okay’. Four years ago, she would have been really afraid and worried and would be texting me. But now it's no bother and I think it really puts parents' minds at ease and that's what you want to see for everybody.
The ideal world for all of us would be that there's no fighting and no sectarianism, but it would take a lot for that to happen. I hope for the future that we’re able to understand where other people are coming from.’
Michael from Ardoyne tells his story:
‘Growing up in Ardoyne, my family would have said, ‘Do not be in the Shankill. I don't want to see you around any of the interfaces’. When I was younger I hadn’t a clue, and if all my mates were going for a fight I went down to have a nosey. Looking back now, I think that was so stupid of me. Why would I ever have wanted to be involved in that? That's why I took myself away from that.
I joined R-CITY, did two weeks of juniors, then I moved on to summer camp. I built good relationships where you focus on your leadership skills and you do the Foróige module. After that I did the interview and got picked for Africa. Looking back at when I was at the interfaces I’m glad now that I came here and now we're all coming together.
For the next step, I think the peace walls should be taken down. You're just looking back on history by looking at the peace walls. I think they should just be taken down so then there's no way to look back.’
Darcy from the Upper Shankill shares her story:
‘When I was growing up all the young people from my community talked so highly about R-CITY. I was 13 and there was an opportunity to join the junior group, so I went down for the sign up. When you're a junior you just get to know everyone and make friends. Then in Year 1 you start the Foróige module that we do with Queen's University. You do your leadership for life skills, and learn all about teamwork and confidence and motivation. Then in Year 2, we carry on with Foróige and graduate in December. We learn more about leadership, like what type of leader you are, and you get to know more about yourself.
We're all just the same, just young people trying to go through life and learn about ourselves, and that we're all the same. We can all be friends and it doesn't matter where you come from, who you are, who your parents are, or anything.
I go over to concerts on the Ormeau Rd during the summer. Mummy and daddy would always say, ‘just be careful when you're there’, but now I don't need to worry as I have so many different friends. Now I can walk through Ardoyne and feel safe.
I think the peace walls and all this ‘you can’t go into other areas’ stuff should just be taken away. They’re just reminders of how we were brought, but times are completely different now. I also think there should be youth groups like R-CITY all over Northern Ireland, so other young people get the same opportunity we’ve had. We are the future and politicians need to come and listen to what we have to say about peace walls and integrated youth groups and schools and everything.’
Olivia from the Glengormley shares her story:
‘I grew up in the middle of a Protestant area and going to school in my Catholic uniform was really scary. My mummy told me not to go to certain places. My friends wanted to join R-CITY and she said ‘You can't be going up there’, but eventually I won her over.
You get to know loads of people and then in Year 1, you start learning about people, how they cope with things and their skills. You learn about what type of leader they are and how they communicate and what type of personality people have.
You need patience with your peers. Some of them are slow burners. You really have to take the time to get to know them and know how to communicate with them. Communication is really important and you need to listen to understand why there are so many stereotypes and why there are people who don't want to join R-CITY. I just take every opportunity and I've never, ever looked back. I got the opportunity to get on the Africa team.
I definitely think there should be more youth groups spread about because it would benefit so many people. Some people still go out fighting in town and it's so ‘ten years ago’ and not where we want to be in ten years’ time.
I definitely think the government should listen to us more because we are the people who are growing up and trying to develop the future. They should take our opinions into consideration and what we think, rather than the older generation, because we're trying to fix what has happened in the past.’
Pierce McConnell, the R-CITY Manager tells his story:
‘I grew up in Ardoyne, on the streets with a large group of friends who got a reputation for being anti-social and involved in drugs and alcohol. We were a target group for outreach youth workers and they engaged a small group of us who were involved in football.
R-CITY started in 2013 when I was around 15. I was underachieving massively in education. I left school in fifth year with just one GCSE. I had no idea of where I was going career wise. I signed up for R-CITY with no real idea of where it would go. Due to the process and progression route that R-CITY ended up developing, I transitioned through it.
Around 17, through the international element I learned the value of education. I'd always seen education as a problem and looked for any way to get out of it. When I went to South Africa, I saw how they valued education as an opportunity to get out of the circumstances they were in, to make a life for themselves. When I came back, I realised I should make more of my opportunities.
I saw youth work as something I wanted to do, to provide opportunities for young people with similar circumstances to me. I saw this as my pathway. I got involved with youth work and I transitioned through being part-time staff, to graduating and ending up in a full-time role.
I think good relations programmes have made a major difference in bringing the communities together, but there's still so much segregation within our areas.
Look at education, for example, there's so much single identity and there's not much integrated education. For working class communities, transport's always an issue. It's so much easier for a young person in these communities to go to a single identity primary school that's just around the corner or where the bus just takes you straight up, than having to get two or three buses or a taxi to travel to an integrated school.
There's so much single identity and not much integrated sports and there's a real lack of access to each other's communities. There are the interface barriers but there's also the invisible ones. As a kid growing up your parents always told you, ‘Don't cross by the bookies at the top of Brompton Park.’ There's nothing there physically stopping you, but mentally you know not to go by there because of the stereotypes and assumptions from your parents’ experiences of growing up.
T:BUC is offering the opportunity for programmes like R:CITY to engage young people. Firstly, to bring them together to familiarize themselves with each other. We have found that young people from these areas have so much more in common than differences. When they have a safe environment they find those similarities and, automatically, a relationship starts forming. A year later, when we talk about the differences, it's not so challenging to talk about it. Discussing the differences is so much easier after you've found so much in common.
When R-CITY began, it was about creating long-term sustainable relationships. It’s this longevity that creates the friendships and it’s one of my favourite things about this project. There are people from Ardoyne and Shankill that now live with each other, and have kids with each other and have moved into shared communities, and it all came from an opportunity to meet each other in the first place.’
Donavan Evitt, R-CITY Youth works tells her story:
‘I'm from the Shankill and I never went to a youth centre when I was 10 or anything like that. I started in youth work provision when I was 15. My brother told me about the R-CITY programme and I brought three of my friends with me and we signed up in 2015. At that point, to be honest, it was just something to fill the night and in Year 2, I had the opportunity to go to South Africa.
I didn't really know what I wanted to do at the time. I was asked to volunteer within one of the projects. I hadn't really thought of a career, so I thought I’d give it a go because I liked what the project had done for me. I’d made loads of new friends and developed a better sense of other communities, so I thought, ‘why not give back and do it for other young people?’ Youth work helped me through a lot of my hardships. They showed me what we can give back to young people. For me, as a youth worker it’s always about relationships and when I stripped it back to the bare bones, it's because of the relationships I had from when I was 15.
The family I come from was very staunch. My dad would never let me go to certain places. I wasn't allowed to have Catholics as friends. But by watching my journey and what I have achieved through youth work and R-CITY and good relations, he actually sent my two younger sisters to an integrated school, when I went to a single identity school. So as much as you say we're changing the narratives in terms of young people, I think we undervalue the impact that you can have on the older generation too, through their young people. We might not be able to change them because they lived through those experiences, but they can live through the young people.
When we bring young people into a room, they forget the whole Catholic and Protestant thing, but it needs to be discussed. But once we do that, we need to start focusing on the issues that young people on the ground are facing like mental health. We need to focus on what young people are saying are the issues they face, alongside the topic of good relations and diversity.’
Themes: Youth, Interfaces, Peace Walls, Education, Leadership, Youth Work