SITTING IN a Mayfair office in London this week, a group of teenagers from the Kilwilkie estate in Lurgan, Co Armagh, reflected on the changes they had noticed within themselves since they signed up last year for a project run by Co-Operation Ireland, a charity that works to further the peace process within the community.
“We’ve greater self-confidence. If we argue, we know now how to sort it out,” says Niamh White (17). Sixteen-year-old Sean Hyndman interjects: “Punctuality, that’s one thing we’ve learned.”
Shannon McGarry (16), who has learned to coach non-contact boxing and now wants to go to college, adds: “Before, if people in the group walked into the room they would have in come with their hoodies up. Now they take them down and talk to people.”
Co-operation Ireland picked this group, a few of whom had been barred from pubs and shops in and around their estate, because it saw them as having the potential to become young leaders of their community.
The changes they mention highlight the damage suffered by generations of young people in Northern Ireland. They were left with few expectations of life and often without the skills to do much about their situations.
Co-Operation Ireland, led by the inspirational former PSNI officer Peter Sheridan has worked with the teenagers since they were chosen. The idea is to broaden their horizons, instil leadership skills and encourage them to believe that they can be agents of change.
Last year, the group was feted in Belfast when Wasted, a short, highly regarded film they had made telling the story of a local boyon cup final day, premiered. Former taoiseach Bertie Ahern turned up to hand out awards.
In London, the group was shepherded by project co- ordinator Erin Duffy who is in her early 20s.
They had just finished spending time with Arsenal FC, at Sea Life aquarium and Nike Gamechangers, which aims to achieve change through sport, while others had visited a Formula 1 team’s headquarters near Oxford and Glasgow Celtic FC.
James McGeown’s visit to Sea Life left him full of enthusiasm. “I had a whale of a time,” he says, pleased with his joke. “I fed the piranhas, sharks, stingrays. It was brilliant.”
Now McGeown is aiming to study marine biology in the University of Ulster campus at Jordanstown. “I’d like to work out in the wild,” he says. “I am hoping to go into some form of it. I’ll do my best anyway, so I will.”
Hyndman, a member of Clann Éireann GAA club in Lurgan, was one of three to go to Arsenal as part of the football club’s efforts to inspire youths living in tough estates in north London, around the corner from its Emirates stadium, to get involved in sport.
Although the London estates are often seen as rough places riven with racism and gang violence, the Irish group was impressed at what they found.
Hyndman says: “They have so much more than us. Facilities the likes of which we don’t have in Kilwilkie.”
Aaron Devine adds: “It was so different to Lurgan. We met loads of young people that they are trying to involve in sport. This has really built up my confidence. I wouldn’t have been able to speak to you before.”
In the beginning, few in Kilwilkie had any faith in the project, says White. “A lot of people didn’t apply to join because they didn’t think it was going to be any good,” she says. “They thought it was going to fail because most other things fail.”
Opinion soon changed, leading to some jealousy from other teenagers in Kilwilkie.
“[The group] got a month of a break at Christmas, but before the end of it some of their parents were ringing up saying ‘When are you starting up again?’ because they didn’t want their kids to be slipping back,” says Duffy.
Although they enjoyed the trip, none wants to leave Lurgan permanently. “No, I want to stay,” says Duffy. “If we travel, we can bring stuff back. We can bring skills back. We want to go back and build our community. And it is up to us to do it.”
There are many challenges ahead. Kilwilkie is “rife with drugs and you can get anything you want within five minutes,” says one of the group. Under-age drinking is the norm, while dissident Republicans, though small in number, are present.
As she gets ready to take her charges to Gatwick and home to Lurgan, Duffy says: “It hasn’t always been rosy. It has been a journey. There was conflict within the group at times, but they resolved it. They should be very proud of themselves.”
Once back home, they will continue the project for another year,learning about how to build community relations.
“They will then sit down and decide what they want to do,” says Duffy.
Already the group’s ambitions are growing.
Co-Operation Ireland is currently talking with a charity working in Uganda. The group of teenagers has started to plan the wells that they will dig and the classes that they will give to youngsters there.
