Peace Builds at the Speed of Trust? Exploring the development of ‘trust indicators’ for school-based reconciliation

On the International Day of Peace Thursday 21st September, as part of Good Relations week, research undertaken through a partnership between the Centre for Trust, Peace and Social Relations (Coventry University) and Community Relations in Schools (CRIS) will be launched. The research examines the role of trust building in school-based reconciliation initiatives. Trust, while taken for granted as important, has not been deeply unpacked or examined to better understand its more particular role in facilitating a move towards reconciliation.

This research examined as a case study, CRIS’s model of peacebuilding Good Relations and Collaborative Education (GRACE) which is operationalized through CRIS’s whole school approach working with children, teachers, principals, parents and carers. One research outcome was the development of a set of ‘trust indicators’ which have the potential to be useful to practitioners but also for policy initiatives aimed to support social cohesion outcomes such as reconciliation and good relations, equality and inclusion, and to chart the impact of initiatives such as shared education, and collaborative approaches within education.  The launch event will feature highlights from the research with a panel discussion to follow.

Advance registration for the event required through Community Relations in Schools. For more information contact: emily.stanton@crisni.org. Registration will close on Thursday September 14th at 5pm.

TREK CULTURAL TRAILS

The installation of 21 Trek Cultural Trails is an event to celebrate Good Relations Week and to mark the end of a TREK Project delivered to 10000+ children across 42 schools in North Belfast including Nursery, Primary and Secondary School age children over a 3 month programme of activities with over 500 parents attending a range of workshops and activities with their children over this time and co funded with NIHE.

The 21 cultural trails have been developed in partnership with Brilliant Trails and will be installed into 21 participating Primary Schools to further promote culture, diversity & inclusion within a school setting. This will include mainstream, Irish and Integrated Primary Schools with installation of Trail Boards & QR Codes and provision of worksheets in both English and Irish. These will be used with over 2400 children accessing the trails over Good Relation’s Week & a further 5000+ children will engage in use of the trails over the following year.

 

Lord Mayor launching Good Relations Week for BHSCT

The Lord Mayor will do a speech to open GRW for Belfast Health & Social Care Trust.

The speech will be delivered virtually, and will be available on Belfast Health & Social Care Trust social media platforms.

For more information, please contact caroline.mcmenamin@belfasttrust.hscni.net

Facebook – @BelfastTrust     –  www.facebook.com/BelfastTrust

Instagram – belfasttrust   – www.instagram.com/belfasttrust/

Twitter – @BelfastTrust         –  www.twitter.com/BelfastTrust

“VOICES” Marking 100 years of Northern Ireland

BCRC officially launches its ‘VOICES- Marking 100 years of Northern Ireland’ publication. This publication is an anthology of all responses and creative work on the 100th Anniversary of Northern Ireland – past, present and hopes for the future.

This is a  showcase of poetry, prose, art, commentary from the many voices of local people.

BCRC’s 100 Voices project began with ‘Peace of Me’ Online Visual Exhibition during CRC Good Relations Week 2020 and continued with online songwriting workshops, creative writing sessions, book club on partition, youth voice and women’s civic voice workshops.   The project was delivered online due to the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020-21.