Institute for the Study & Practice of Nonviolence

Providence Journal: In a tough part of Belfast, youths need help, as they do here

In a tough part of Belfast, youths need help, as they do here
Sunday, October 28, 2007
Julia Steiny

I recently went to Belfast, Northern Ireland, with a team from Providence’s Institute for the Study and Practice of Nonviolence.

The institute has an ongoing relationship with an organization called Forthspring, a coalition of Protestant and Catholic churches trying to rebuild Belfast’s communities after decades of the civil war they call “The Troubles.”

Forthspring’s building is butt up against the euphemistically named “Peace Wall” that divides two once-warring neighborhoods. The residents still don’t cross to the other side.

This was the institute’s second trip in two years to train Forthspring staff in Martin Luther King Jr.’s principles and methods of nonviolence.
 

October trip to Belfast

In October 2007, Institute Director Teny Gross traveled to Belfast with Father Ray Malm, a co-founder of the Institute and a priest at Saint Michael’s Parish on Providence’s South Side; Maggie Meany, operations director at Amos House, and a trainer at the Institute; Ajay Benton, program manager for the Streetworkers Program at the Institute; and Sal Monteiro, streetworker and trainer at the Institute.

The Institute's contingent worked with adults and children in a sectarian area of Belfast that has long suffered from poverty and violence. Although violence has decreased in Northern Ireland, our trip hosts at the Forthspring Inter Community Group say sectarianism and polarization continue as problems. And, new challenges, like increased drug use and teen suicide, have emerged.

Read Julia Steiny's Providence Journal column on the trip here.

Read Teny's blog entries from Belfast, hosted by the Providence Journal here.