Youth Radio - Topic: Ireland

Teens Bond Over Terrorism Tragedies

rgee — Wed, 04 Aug 2010 16:39:22 -0500

Sometimes you just need someone to listen who knows exactly what you’ve been through. This is especially true when the unspeakable happens, and you lose a family member in a terrorist act. Project Common Bond is making it possible for teens in this position to connect and support each other.

Project Common Bond is a nine day camp, held once a year, for 14 - 18 year olds whose families have been changed by terrorism. The program is run by an organization called Tuesday's Children, that specifically supports families affected by the 9/11 terrorist attack, as well as those affected by global terrorism. According to Alisha Feltman, Event and Development Coordinator for Tuesday’s Children, Project Common Bond was the brainchild of the 9/11 teens. “They wanted a way to connect with kids from around the world who had been through the same thing,” she said.

The 2010 Project Common Bond camp is being held right now - from August 1 - 8, in Belfast Northern Ireland. Since the camp’s beginning in 2008 in Pennsylvania, the founders planned to take it overseas, says Feltman. “Belfast had the most interest in hosting the camp, and terrorism is fresh in their minds,” she said. “They are eager to have the camp on their soil.” Around 14 teens from Northern Ireland and Ireland are attending the camp this year. According to PRNewswire, the participating campers are a range of nationalities - American, Spanish, Israeli, Palestinian, Northern Irish, Irish and Argentinian. This is the first year that Argentinian and Palestinian teens have participated in the camp. The teens only pay for their airfare and the rest is covered by donations.

The campers go through a strong curriculum that focuses on peace-building and conflict mediation. This year, the curriculum was developed by Harvard University. Because of the intense nature of the traumatic experiences that these teens have been through, Project Common Bond always has professionals develop the curriculum. “The focus is on healing through community,” says Feltman. “Professionals design the curriculum so that we can deal with the emotional factors in a positive way, instead of a destructive way.”
The teens also participate in art, music, and dance activities that make their friendships and connections even stronger.

While the program asks that all teens have some knowledge of English, each country brings a chaperone and translators. Feltman went along to the camp as an intern for Tuesday’s Children in 2008. “Even though there’s a language barrier, teens still manage to keep in touch with each other after the camp is over,” she said. For her, this was the most powerful part of the experience. “The camp creates life-long friendships and understanding. It goes way beyond the camp,” she said.

In Belfast on Tuesday, the campers traveled around to see local peace monuments. An article in the Boston Globe reported, “The campers and 35 counselors toured the famed murals that enliven rival British Protestant and Irish Catholic districts of Belfast -- tough neighborhoods still separated by dozens of high security walls called "peace lines." Even some of the Northern Ireland campers, hailing from rural towns and villages with their own murderous legacies, had never seen them in person.” In the picture above, teens from this year's Project Common Bond visit the Belfast Peace Walls.

Globalization is sometimes characterized as exploitation and outsourcing. But Project Common Bond shows how globalization can be a force for good: creating an international network of support for those who need it most.

St. Patrick's Day Flashback

noah — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 16:45:12 -0500

For St. Patrick's Day we've reached back into the archives- all the way back to that bygone era known as 2009- to pull up a trio of stories from a trip reporter Pendarvis Harshaw made to Ireland for Youth Radio.

Ireland's Greatest Export

There is an old Irish saying: "Ireland's greatest export is its people,"and as I walked through the market today window shopping, I saw exactly why: the rich spirited, politically active, religiously optimistic people of Dublin moved in crowds though soggy cobblestone streets.

YR Europe: Irish Slang 101

I am a mad egg who's having a bloody wopper of a time enjoying the stick matches with the youth of Dublin's inner-city Kip. Translation: I am a crazy cool person who's really enjoying my time trading jokes back and forth with the youth of Dublin's ghettos.

Whimpering Celtic Tiger

After Ireland joined the European Union, its economy roared to life in the 1990s, becoming known as the Celtic Tiger. Today it’s whimpering. The symptoms are familiar – credit is scarce, and joblessness is rampant. Young people in Ireland have been primed for jobs that are now non-existent.

Whimpering Celtic Tiger

noah — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 12:46:15 -0500

As heard on Marketplace.

After Ireland joined the European Union, its economy roared to life in the 1990s, becoming known as the Celtic Tiger. Today it’s whimpering. The symptoms are familiar – credit is scarce, and joblessness is rampant. Young people in Ireland have been primed for jobs that are now non-existent. Youth Radio’s Pendarvis Harshaw reports on the difficult choices Irish youth must make about how they’ll survive the downturn.

“So how are you, Ruth? I’m grand…”- Rosie Ward

Sound of cake being unwrapped...

Rosie Ward is 26 years old, and has big dreams. But for now, she's stuck working in a tiny coffee shop in the town of Ardee, about an hour outside of Dublin. The shop used to sell pastries to busloads of tourists and a steady stream of construction workers. This year, business mostly comes from local customers.

“It's ok, a bit slow at the minute but hopefully things will pick up.” - Rosie Ward

Plates clinking together.

Ward eventually wants to find work as a bookkeeper, settle down with her boyfriend, and start a family. But she's finding it difficult to plant seeds on Ireland 's unstable economic terrain. Ward’s boyfriend is a plasterer… but construction projects are drying up.

He hasn’t had work since the end of November…and so he’s heading off to Germany next week for about three months working on a project over there.- Rosie Ward

This generation expected that getting -- and keeping -- a job would be a sure thing. For most of their lives, foreign investment rolled into the emerald isle, creating jobs and expanding credit.

Cormack Lynch is a former investment banker who left Ireland in the 1980s, when career prospects were limited.
When Lynch returned a decade later, he saw many Irish living beyond their means.

“The government decided to lower taxes and let the Irish population have that money themselves. This, coupled with rampant house price inflation and very little investment in services, results in Ireland not being able to borrow any more money.”
-- Cormack Lynch

With the Irish economy now in a rut, Lynch says there's only one piece of advice he’d give recent college graduates.

“If it was me, I'd leave Ireland . I'd be outta here for a couple years, tour the world. I think it's going to be very difficult.”
-- Cormack Lynch

In Dublin, there are plenty of young professionals who’re having a hard time finding good employment.

Twenty-seven-year-old lawyer Keira Shaughnessey says salaries at her firm have been cut 30 percent. She says she knows plenty of young lawyers who plan to leave their country.

People are being forced to go abroad, and people are very well educated so their not going to be willing to stay here and … get handouts from the government. Keira Shaughnessey:

Today, Ireland’s unemployment rate is at ten percent…the same level as before the boom.

Sound of door bell at bakery.

Back in Ardee, waitress Rosie Ward is saving her money for a summer trip to Australia, where she'd also be looking to find work until the Irish economy recovers.

“Luckily my job is safe at the minute. But who's to say this time next year if we're still going to be here?" -Rosie Ward

That’s not something this generation thought they’d be asking themselves, after growing up during one of the most prosperous times Ireland has ever seen. For now, their lofty dreams have been put on hold.

In Ardee, Ireland , I'm Pendarvis Harshaw, for Marketplace.

A Generation After The Troubles

noah — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 17:02:21 -0600

President Obama's newly appointed Middle East Envoy, George Mitchell, is perhaps best known for his work on another political and religious puzzle -- the Good Friday peace agreement between Protestants and Catholics in Northern Ireland. Youth Radio's Pendarvis Harshaw visited the West Belfast neighborhood that was the seat of power for paramilitary groups there, to find out how the peace process has evolved among its young people.

This neighborhood is Ground Zero for "the Troubles", as the natives of Ireland call the violence between Protestants and Catholics that intensified in the late 60s. The children growing up here now haven't been directly touched by the violence that marked the Troubles, and their generation is the Petri dish for whether peace will hold here. They still live in a segregated city. Protestants and Catholics live in two neighborhoods divided by a wall, euphemistically called a Peace Wall.

"It took really long to build it," said 11-year-old Leigh Hutchinson, "and it would take really long to knock it down because it's really really big and really really long." Leigh is a student at the Clubhouse Community Center, a community organization in Belfast. There are actually two Clubhouses open to the youth here: one on the Catholic side of the wall, and one on the Protestant side, where Leigh lives.

"Even though we have a peace wall, there shouldn't really be one," Leigh said. "Even though it does help separate the Protestants and Catholics and stoppin' them from fightin, no other place really has one so it's a bit not normal."

The gates at either end of the peace wall close at sundown, to prevent the lingering embers of conflict between the two neighborhoods from sparking into violence reminiscent of the time before the peace deal ten years ago.

"My daddy used to be in the army," Leigh's twin sister Laura tells me, "and he talks constantly about it. I can't really explain how he talks because he talks so much about it I can't remember. He just thinks he's the greatest because he was in the army and he just likes talking... he like the sound of his own voice,"

Laura, as most children would, says her parent talks a lot. But sending his daughter to a center that promotes reconciliation-- in the very community where he once waged war-- says more than Leigh's father could ever articulate.

As recently as two years ago, there were nightly riots here: Catholics and Protestants were exchanging lit explosives over the peace wall. It's a blue collar section of Belfast, where most young people won't go on to college, or work far from home. Elizabeth Donaldson works with young people at the Clubhouse in the Protestant Shankill Road area. She says both Catholics and Protestants in West Belfast have high rates of teen pregnancy and suicide, and are at risk of drug use.

"The funny thing is," said Elizabeth, "there are young people that feel -the other side are aliens to them-- in proximity they're very close , in interests they're very close. And it's only when they get together that they realize that each other are not two headed monsters."

Fourteen-year-old Steven is a computer graffiti master who regularly attends the Clubhouse in the Catholic neighborhood of Falls Road. He attributes the bulk of his historical knowledge of the Troubles to YouTube videos, but says he's experienced Catholic-Protestant violence vicariously through his 19-year-old brother.

"My mom just sits and worries about him," Steven shared. "Sticking up for the Catholic religion or something, over nothing. Sneaking out at night when the riots were actually on. I always tell him not to go up – I haven't heard of any riots for a few years, so it's sorta calmed down."

Although Steven speaks on the history of violence disapprovingly, his teacher says Steven and other teens look upon their relatives' involvement in the Catholic-Protestant rioting as a kind of "machismo"; a way to show how close they are to being involved in the subsided conflict.

Leigh Hutchinson at the Protestant Shankill Road Clubhouse says they commemorate their heroes with a poem they have to recite on Remembrance Day. Protestants have adopted this World War I era poem as a nationalist hymn.

Leigh claims that "me and Chloe and Laura all had to memorize it. On Flander's Fields, poppies grow…row on row…I can't remember. She's going to go over to the computer and check it out".

Leigh paused halfway through the poem so her friend could go and look up the words for her on the Internet, in a classroom covered with sketches and paintings of the students' favorite pop stars. I almost asked Leigh to recite the singer Rihanna's latest single, I doubt she would've needed a search engine for that one.

Most of these kids were toddlers when the Good Friday peace agreement was signed in the hopes of ending violence in Northern Ireland. But their neighborhood is still socially and physically segregated - Catholics on one side, Protestants on the other. Programs like the Clubhouse ease the integration process, but still, their interaction takes place mostly on field trips. Nonetheless, these small integrations are the pebbles cast by a Trouble-free generation in an effort to knock down the wall between these two communities, only a stones throw apart.

YR Europe: A Tight Knit Community Where "The Troubles" Began

nishat — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 12:20:07 -0600

(Produced with the assistance of Ardmore Sound)

Derry, Northern Ireland is a small town that packs a militant punch.
In the early 1600's, the seeds of its rich history were planted by the early clashings of English and Irish men. This piece of land that sits on the banks of the Foyle river played host to what would be known as "Bloody Sunday," the 30th of January, 1972.
Modern day Derry is just as militant as it was when the 17th century architecture of this small town was erected. The wall around the town's center creates a central area primarily used for tourism and shopping, while the land outside of the gates is a divided community of low income Protestants and Catholics who have historically been at one another's throats.
During an interview with the head of a local organization called Cresco Trust Ltd., which promotes youth employment and entrepreneurial opportunites, she warned that at nightfall it'd be best to stay away from the road where the headquarters of her business is located. She said there have been recent flare-ups related to the "Troubles," as they call the conflict between Catholics and Protestants, in the interface areas. Now dusk marks the hour when she and other business owners close their shops in hopes of returning in the morning to an intact building.
In one of Cresco Trust's entrepreneurial projects, low income residents and incarcerated individuals use quilting to take out their frustrations and cultivate art that is both beautiful and functional. On one gloomy Friday afternoon at the Mission Hill Quilts store, a young college grad named Jenine was selling cloth and completed quilts. Jenine said this was her way of doing something constructive in this conflicted village.

YR Europe: We Are the World?

nishat — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 16:58:26 -0600

Robert Stephenson, founder of the musical movement known as Blast Beat, has this outlandish idea that the world can unite by music! The Blast Beat movement started in Ireland and has since spread like racism all around the world, now they have chapters everywhere from South Africa to South Central. Okay, so the musical movement has had minor success in engaging young men and women to express themselves musically- but that's not going to bring peace to the Middle East, right? Hahaha, have you seen the news- imagine Stevie Wonder playing the harmonica on the Gaza Strip attempting to harmonize with the Hamas missles flying overhead? Yeah right! The world could never come together on one accord - so I know they couldn't come together on one chord. Or at least, that's what AP stories would have you believe.

Well, it seems something must be in the tap water here in Dublin because Mr. Stephenson isn't the only person thinking the world can be brought together. Today I had the luxury of visiting the school. A beautiful educational institution founded by Edmund Rice, built on the solid foundation that uneducated Irish citizens can pull themselves up by their bootstraps if they have the necessary education made available. This idea flew as Rice developed a following called the Christian Brotherhood. This group saw that this idea would be carried on long past Edmund Rice's death- and it has. As Ireland's social landscape has changed drastically since the founding of the school, the school's ideals have slightly altered too. Now the administrators believe the world's people can pull themselves up by their boot straps if given the opportunity to do so- and they have!

I entered the English classroom full of teenage boys during the attendance roll call, and lost all hopes of ever being a substitute teacher here - the names were all over the place. The students were from everywhere. I searched for comparisons for hours: it was like taking a New York subway train and dropping it in the middle of the San Francisco Bay Area; it was like Captain Planet's dream come true; it was like God told Noah, "on second thought, give me two of each kind of young man from all around the world in order to educate them, and then send them back to the country from which they left in order to save their people." And so they came.

The young man from Iran sat in the room with the young man from Iraq and cracked jokes, there were two young men from Somalia sitting in a row (one was Tiger Woods' skin tone, the other was Wesley Snipes' skin tone), there were students from Eastern Europe, West Africa, and everywhere in between. And the icing? The teacher was from Romania!

Wow. United Nations eat your heart out!

So maybe I was wrong to assume that Stephenson was off his rocker for thinking the world could come together on one musical chord - I have evidence that they can come together under one blackboard!

YR Europe: A Grotesque Protest

nishat — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 18:47:49 -0600

by Pendarvis Harshaw
(Produced with the Assistance of Ardmore Sound)

Tommy Gorman is a proud Irish Republican who spent 13 years and 9 months in prison for his sins--and that was just one of his four sentences. He is known for escaping prison and swimming to freedom, after spending the majority of his time in prison covering his cell walls with feces as a form of grotesque protest, not only against the prison guards, but in protest of the British Parliament.

In the city of Belfast, Northern Ireland there is a "peace wall" that divides two of the city's most impoverished neighborhoods. These two neighborhoods also have divided religious beliefs: Catholic and Protestant. A community center called the Clubhouse has chapters on both ends of the quarter-mile graffiti-covered wall. I interviewed young people who attend both of these centers, and there was a common consensus. The struggle is not worth it.

Tommy Gorman, the aforementioned political prisoner, who spent the majority of the 70's and 80's in prison just outside of Belfast for his connections to the Irish Republican Army (IRA) agrees wholeheartedly."Dont struggle." He said this so casually, so nonchalantly, but yet the words meant so much coming from a man who hated Margaret Thatcher with a passion deep enough to keep him away from his family during the years that mattered most. "I was in prison, but my wife did the time." Gorman served in an internment camp initially just for being associated with the IRA.

Gorman, a reserved man, starved himself for his cause, chose not to bathe to prove his point, and as I mentioned earlier (and can't stress enough) decorated his cell with his own excrement. Now he looks back at all that he went through in order to get the British out of Northern Ireland, and he says it wasn't worth it. He says that in comparison to the conflict going on now in Gaza, "I had a holiday while I was locked away."

And I'm standing here stunned--in a city erected for an ugly purpose but decorated with eye-catching political graffiti that references everyone from the self-educated Fredrick Douglass to the uneducated George Bush--and I wonder, when is this divison going to end? Where is the hope for the future when there are still many little Catholic kids who go to school with other little Catholic kids--and never interact with their Protestant city mates? If the Catholic people don't want this division, and the Protestant people don't want this division, the question is not who WANTS this division, but who is profiting from this division. Gorman said it best:

"On both ends of the 'peace wall' the people of the working class suffer from the same deprivation: low employment, bad health, bad housing. No different on the Protestant side or the Catholic side. Get the people together to demand change as a working class group--not as Catholic and Protestant...realize they relate to the people on the other side of the wall [more] than they do to their masters. The people who have, still have. The people who have not, still have not."

I've known for some time now, around the world, from Gaza to Assata, political warriors' struggles are related: low levels of employment, bad health, bad housing. This man can be a warrior in the streets similar to Gaza and be a warrior in prison similar to Assata, and at the end of the day, what does he have to say to the youth?

"Don't struggle."

YR Europe: Irish Slang 101

nishat — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 19:25:31 -0600

(Produced with the assistance of Ardmore Sound)

According to my research: I am a mad egg who's having a bloody wopper of a time enjoying the stick matches with the youth of Dublin's inner-city Kip. Translation: I am a crazy cool person who's really enjoying my time trading jokes back and forth with the youth of Dublin's ghettos.

Amongst other things I'm enjoying thus far- this holds true.

Monday January 11th, 2009. My producer Nishat Kurwa, and I found ourselves "legginnit" (running really fast) to get on the Dublin Area Rapid Transit (DART) train headed toward the town of Bray. We made the train, sat down to a breakfast of muffins and orange juice and enjoyed the 30 minute journey south along the Ireland eastern seaboard. "What a morning commute," Nishat exclaimed as we exited a tunnel and entered a seaside view that reminded us both of Northern California's coastline.
We arrived in the small town of Bray, were picked up by our Youth Radio diplomat to Ireland Paul Moore, and we headed off to the Irish foothills where the legendary Ardmore Sound studios are located.

On arrival we were thrust into the meticulous editing process which takes place in the numerous studios and sound stages on the Ardmore property. We were engulfed in different stages of the editing process of three prospective feature films of 2009, two of which featured Colin Farrell. Nothing against Farrell, but the third of the trifecta, which he wasn't in, was the most interesting to watch being sound edited. Well, at least it was in the most interesting part of the audio processing: sound effects! They used water bladders to make the sound of someone urinating, they had random deer feet by the side of the sound stage, and they squeezed a 1960's Mini Cooper into a mini room and used the inside of the car to make automobile audio! This has to be the coolest job in the world!... at least I thought, until I heard how rigorous the process is: every sound must be remade after a film is shot. Picture this: you shoot a simple scene: a person in high heels walking into a room with wooden floors... you have to remake the sound of the heels against the floor, change the footsteps sound when the character reaches the little carpet in the middle of the room, remake the sound of the person's clothing rubbing against them as they walk- oh heck, you even have to re-record their breath! And you better match their natural breathing pattern!

Wow...

Ardmore turned out to be an experience Irish slang would lead me to describe as a "wicked stonch" studio or a "bloody wopper" of a place to be. Translation: NICE!

On the ride from Bray, jetlag crept on me and I nodded off in the backseat of the Volkswagon driven by our Irish diplomat - when I awoke, we were back in Dublin. Nishat and Paul were talking about how Ireland had just legalized the sale of condoms within the past 15 years, and we were pulling into the Camara offices. Camara is a revolutionary business that refurbishes computers and sends them to 7 locations on the continent of Africa. Not to be what the youngsters from Dublin's kip call a "lick arse", but the CEO who created this movement is an "animal" (really cool guy). This is exactly what this green world needs!

From the Camara headquaters we drove approximately 2 blocks to the Clubhouse youth center where I met the four Irish teens who expanded my vocabulary twofold and expanded my "wickedness" fourfold - at least here in Dublin.