Article written by Community Relations in Schools (CRIS).
In this our 40th year of operations, CRIS (Community Relations in Schools) was delighted to be hosted by Belfast City Council at the City Hall to celebrate the success of the Buddy Up! programme.
Buddy Up! is a schools-based peacebuilding programme, which, over the last six years, has been funded by The Executive Office’s Urban Villages initiative. In that time, CRIS has worked with 40 school communities, directly engaged upwards of 4000 children and 800 adults. This was a programme, and an impact, worth celebrating.
The Community Relations Council supports CRIS through its Core Funding Scheme.
CRIS was joined by the fantastic team at Urban Villages and other funding partners, by parents, school staff, pupils, elected officials, academics, and community organisations, all of whom had their own stories and reflections from the last number of years as City Hall became a place of reconnection and reminiscence for all who had connected to the work.
With so many stories to be shared, this event became the perfect launching ground for CRIS’s new film ‘Small Steady Steps.’ In this film, the voices of the participants were heard loud and clear, as principals, parents, pupils and teachers all spoke about their experiences and their reflections on the impact Buddy Up! has had on them and in their school communities.
In this film, we see real friendships where children may not otherwise have had the chance to meet. We find teachers who talk about how engaging with the programme has developed their own practice and allowed them to tackle previously difficult conversations with a new confidence and we meet parents and grandparents who are buoyed by the great work Buddy Up! is doing in their community.
The sentiment of the film was beautifully surmised by CEO, Lisa Dietrich, who said that CRIS’s practice allowed schools and communities to “feel empowered and impassioned to create safe learning spaces and guide their children’s learning and growth towards compassion, empathy, nuance and understanding, so that the slow creep of polarisation is countered by confident and kind citizenship.”
The audience were not only fortunate enough to witness the film premiere, but they were also lucky to be joined by some of its young stars, as the pupils from Cliftonville Integrated and Bunscoil Bheann Mhadagain took their seats to watch themselves as stars of the big screen.
The audience were then treated to a lively panel discussion, ably chaired by CRIS’s own Dr Norman Richardson and featuring principals from each of our educational sectors, as Bronagh McVeigh (St Vincent de Paul), Dawn Young (Ligoniel), Caoimhin MacUilliam (Scoil na Fuiseoige) and Bill Fletcher (Cliftonville Integrated) discussed their various school’s shared education journey and the impact of Buddy Up! on their pupils and staff. All panellists remarked how working side by side with CRIS has enhanced their school capacity to deliver the Personal Development and Mutual Understanding (PDMU) elements of their curriculum, as well as their ability to work collaboratively.
It was the perfect opportunity for the team at the Education Authority to share information about their upcoming PEACEPLUS project, ASPIRE. This month, ASPIRE workshop go on the road to try and reach as many schools as possible, with sub-cover available for teachers. Find out more about the dates of these sessions.
All in all, this event showcased a wonderful variety of voices and practices that will leave the attendees with plenty to think about and an inspiration for the future.
Small Steady Steps
Watch CRIS’s film, Small Steady Steps, here: https://www.crisni.org/post/small-steady-steps-the-latest-film-from-cris
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