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The Project Facilitator suggested three specific ways in which the conferences enhanced the
students’ level of understanding. They said that the conferences provided an opportunity for
young people and teachers to become engaged in discussion and debate about issues of
conflict and particularly what was happening in Northern Ireland. Secondly, they considered
that it was important to have this opportunity because the school curriculum provided little
opportunity to access information or to debate such issues. It was felt that this was particularly
important at the time given the political significance of the Peace Process. Thirdly, they had
observed that many young people and their teachers said they did not understand what was
happening in Northern Ireland. They argued that this lack of awareness of the history and
background of the current political situation affected people’s confidence to enter into any
discussion about it.
Events in Northern Ireland were an important feature of student discussions. Indeed, a booklet
entitled Let’s Talk: Northern Ireland: A Briefing Paper (80:20, n.d.) which emerged from the
conferences was produced by young people involved in the project. This booklet provided an
annotated timeline of events in Ireland since 1916, together with information about current
issues in the area. The review demonstrated ways in which participants drew on Ireland’s
history. However the Project Facilitator emphasised that the project had broader objectives
than this:
The idea of the project was to support or give young people, 6 th form aged students, an
opportunity to engage with and discuss and debate issues of conflict, peace and
reconciliation. There was part of the project that focused on Northern Ireland and the
‘Troubles’, but that wasn’t the dominant thing; it was about looking at some of these
issues in a global context. So for example … when we had one of the conferences in
Ireland it focused on travellers … looked at in terms of travelling communities in
different parts of the world, and similarly some of the youngsters from Birmingham,
you know, they might run a workshop looking at some of the issues [of] living in a
multicultural city … So what was very interesting was that when you did have a look