Moving Circles and New Friends Feb 24, 2023

Today we got up a bit earlier and took taxis off to school. When we arrived, our students were paired with Oak Grove students and sent off to shadow them in classes throughout the school. They returned a while later for 'tea break' with their new buddies of all ages. 

Then we met with two youth workers from a group called Young People Leading Change who have done programs for HFB in years past to build dialogue between diverse communities. Their group seeks  to nurture a generation of young-people who are willing and able to lead change in Northern Ireland. YPLC will build the capacity of young-people to make their own contribution to society by developing skills, including resilience, entrepreneurialism, creativity, empathy, communication and confidence. 

For the next few hours, our kids were involved in a series of cleverly designed community-building, dialogue activities with 11-13 year-olds (6th graders), 15-year-olds (10th graders), and then 6th formers, the equivalent of seniors. Teachers brought their 6th graders and then 10th graders in -- after telling us that the students were thrilled at the prospect of meeting Americans -- and sat them down with our kids. We watched as our kids enthusiastically engaged with these students in interactive games, discussions about their identities, and finally, dialogue and comparison with older students about their communities. Here are a few photos of all the students in action:

In the end, our kids got a chance to describe the key challenges facing their own communities, exchange definitions of identity, give examples of how racial justice and immigration affected their communities. And listen very carefully to the ways in which the Oak Grove students described these same features of their own communities. 

After a very substantial lunch, we then got onto a bus with our new 6th form buddies down to the Methodist City Mission for Homeless Men and listened to a warm and impassioned presentation by the leader of the mission. He helped our students understand how and why people became homeless in Derry, and what kind of services they had developed to help empower them and return them to lives on their own. He stressed that people here did not tolerate anyone sleeping on the street, and that there would be help for anyone who needed it. Our students asked some good questions about how to carry out these services and what the biggest challenges were. And they listened very attentively to his stories and to those of his new intern from El Salvador who described the differences between a place with government services here and the plight of homeless people in El Salvador.

Kids then set off for a time of wandering through the city center and some shopping with their new Oak Grove friends. And ended up back at our house for dinner. 

John Harkin and Michael Magidman using their hands to express themselves. 

John and Michael monitoring the dinner.

Oak Grove students sit down with Roosevelt students. 

Here is a mural we found of the original Derry girls -- textile factory workers who were primarily women in Derry. 

A special treat after dinner tonight. Kids were invited to receive a lesson in Irish dancing at the Irish Cultural Center downtown and they jumped (literally) at the chance. They came home red-faced and exhilerated and sat down to tell stories and laugh and drink some evening tea. 

All ready for a good evening sleep. And porridge in the morning.