Young Adults

"Human Rights: One World, One People: Cultural Youth Exchange" - For Summer 2004, PRG, in conjunction with Smile UK, a charity in England, are running an eight-month programme promoting cross-community links with 24 young people (18-25 years old) from Northern Ireland and England. There will be a group of 12 from each region, which will be representative of the communities discussed below.

The 12 individuals from each region will meet up on several occasions to promote community links both within the religious divide in Northern Ireland, the Racial "Turf War" in the Wolverhampton/Willenhall area and the sexual discriminations and tensions between males and females from different cultures. The two groups of 12 will meet up twice during July and August (Once in Wolverhampton and once in Derry/Londonderry) to discuss and address these issues as a larger group as well as experience communities unfamiliar to their own.

The culmination of this exchange would be the final project in The Gambia, which will take place in October. Under the management and supervision of Wonder Years Centre of Excellence, the young people will help with WYCE's current building project. WYCE is currently building a nursery, primary and secondary school in a small village called Medina Salaam. This experience will allow the young people to see first hand a culture, which is dramatically different from their own, and in which there is still extreme poverty.

The purpose of the project would be to get the young people as a whole to discuss socio/economic and religious/racial issues with the ultimate aim of exploring the idea that regardless of our apparent differences on the surface, we are all really the same.

"Growing Together: Cultural Youth Exchange" - In the spring of 2002, the Peace
and Reconciliation Group (PRG) gathered six Catholic and six Protestant students
from five local secondary schools to take part in a tri-partide youth exchange with
young people from Liverpool and Bradford, England. After several months ofpre-
exchange work, the three groups travelled to each other's cities over the course of five months. The aim of the exchange project was to examine culture from the perspective of the background of each group, as well as common aspects of youth culture (i.e.drinking, drugs, peer pressure, etc.). The L/Derry group represented the culture of religion; the Liverpool group, the culture of economics/unemployment; and Bradford, the culture of race/ethnicity.

From the standpoint of personal growth amongst the participants, this exchange
project was an unparalleled success. PRG organises exchange trips every two years.
However, this was the first time PRG participated in an exchange that worked to build
understanding and trust between groups throughout the United Kingdom, as well as
between members of L/Derry's cross-community group. Although the exchange
project officially ended in late-October, 2002, the L/Derry participants have
maintained contact with each other and with some of the members of the Liverpool
and Bradford groups. The relationships built between the L/Derry group members
resulted in a request for further work, which has been honoured by PRG in
maintaining bi-monthly meetings with the young people.

"Gave me more confidence to work with and understand others. "
"Our group got along very well. Religion did not seem to matter because so much
more was going on. "

Cross-Border Youth and Citizenship Project - This project was an 18 month, four-
phase programme exploring the relationship between young people in Northern
Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. This project was launched in the spring of 1999,
involving 15 young people, ages 15-18, from Waterside (L/Derry), Letterkenny and
County Donegal. The aim of the project was to look at the impact of culture, national
identity and heritage on individuals and communities. Through workshops, cultural
visits and residentials, the group worked to understand the differences and similarities
that divide and unite them. In Phase II, the participants met politicians in Stormont,
talked with community leaders in both L/Derry and Letterkenny and explored issues
of prejudice, discrimination, identity and culture. Phase III highlighted the rights and
responsibilities of young people. Phase IV started in January 2000 and ran through
April of the same year, when the project concluded with a cross-border young
people's conference, entitled "Mapping Our Millennium." This conference allowed the sharing of project learning with other young people and the demonstration of the
relationship between young people and citizenship during that time of political
transformation. This project won a Citizenship Values Award and past participants
received awards at a showcase conference in September 2002.