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COMMUNITY CONFLICT IMPACT on CHILDREN

Community Conflict Impact on Children (CCIC) was established in 1999 by people from the two main traditions in Northern Ireland, some of who had been bereaved as children in the Troubles and some who work with children and young people and children’s charities. The key objectives were to establish good information about the level and need among children and young people affected by the Troubles in areas of high, medium and low violence, and to empower participants (children, young people, community organisations and voluntary organisations) to better identify and address the effects of the Troubles on children and young people.

As part of this work CCIC carried out a series of in-depth focus groups with children and young people, Catholic and Protestant and “other” from various parts of Northern Ireland. These interviews provided a variety of personal stories of children and young people’s experience of the Troubles. The project has published a series of reports based on these interviews so that voluntary and government agencies can begin to take into an account the effects of the Troubles on children and young people, and so that there is greater awareness of the issues and the situation in which people continue to live.

International Programme on Best International Practice

This project was funded by the Community Relations Council and aimed to focus on working with children and young people in violently divided societies in order to:
  • Establish dialogue between Northern Ireland and South African participants.

  • Produce links that lead to future collaboration

  • Produce presentations for Conferences in both Cape Town and Belfast.

  • Produce a publication for use in training and education of professionals in the field.

The programme established a network of practitioners both within and between South Africa and Northern Ireland, organised a four day colloquium and a one day conference in South Africa and a seminar in Northern Ireland, produced a set of published working papers, and a set of connections between the Departments of Education in South Africa and Northern Ireland. The papers from the colloquium were published as ‘Working with children and young people in violently divided societies’ and is available from the Institute for Conflict Research.

Following the South African colloquium Kirsten Thomson, who had worked with the Trauma Centre in Cape Town as a social worker, child therapist and trainer spent a year working with ICR in Belfast. Her observations and comparisons with South Africa have proved a valuable contribution to work in Northern Ireland, and it is hoped that her experience of Northern Ireland will be of similar value when she returns home to South Africa.

Youthquest 2000 Survey: Joint work with the Joint Society for a Common Cause

CCIC worked in partnership with the Joint Society for a Common Cause (JSCC), a cross-community youth group from the Greater Belfast and Newtownabbey area, in carrying out the Youthquest 2000 survey of young people. The overall aim of the project was to give a political voice to young people between the ages of 14-17 (inclusive) – a group without a voice in elections and opinion polls. The project was designed to give young people the chance to explore and express their views and opinions on issues surrounding the peace process and the Troubles as a whole.

The objectives of the project were to:

  • Give young people a chance to express their beliefs and opinions on the peace process and to gauge the effects of the troubles on their lives;

  • Improve understanding of all young people’s values, beliefs and opinions in the wider community;

  • Provide funding organisations information that will help them target spending on young people’s expressed needs;

  • Provide baseline information for future surveys of young people to build on;

  • Build on previous work of Community Conflict Impact on Children in understanding the impact of the Troubles on children and young people.

A key feature of the work was the involvement of young people in the design and implementation of the questionnaire and survey. JSCC undertook the fieldwork and assisted in the construction of the questionnaire, while CCIC designed the study, directed the research and produced the analysis and final report. CCIC also provided presentation and media training for the young people, so that they could present the survey results, and conduct the media launch of the report.

In general terms, the study has been a learning process for the young people involved, developing skills in research, communication, presentation and organisational capacities. Young people from JSCC presented the findings of the survey at the launch of the Youthquest 2000 report in February 2000. Subsequently, the young people travelled to present their findings to the Members of the European Parliament in Brussels.

The Visit of Olara Otunnu and the ‘Building the Future’ Conference. June 2000

In late 1999, at Le Hague Appeal for Peace, Olara Otunnu, Special Representative of the Secretary General and Under Secretary of the United Nations with Special Responsibility for Children and Armed Conflict, accepted Marie Smyth’s invitation to visit Northern Ireland.

Save the Children commissioned CCIC to organise the visit and following many months of negotiations Mr Otunnu arrived in Northern Ireland in June 2002. Whilst here Mr Otunnu met with politicians, policy makers, heads of NGOs, and visited a number of local communities and schools. He was also received by the Lord Mayor of Belfast and by the Speaker at the Assembly.

Mr Otunnu was also the keynote speaker at the Building the Future conference. CCIC co-ordinated the planning group for the event and delivered the conference jointly with Save the Children. Half of the conference’s 200 participants were young people and the international speakers from South Africa, Kosova, and from the Children and Armed Conflict Unit of the Children’s Law Centre at the University of Essex also made a number of site visits to meet young people in a range of communities across Northern Ireland. A report on the site visits and the conference proceedings was published by CCIC.

His visit culminated in a report to the United Nations General Assembly and an invitation by various government ministers to return and support the work of attending to children’s needs in the course of the peace process. The second visit took place in December 2001.

In addition, Marie Smyth participated in an international workshop in Florence, hosted by the Italian government, and organised by Mr Otunnu’s office in the UN, which focused on ethical and methodological issues in researching children and armed conflict. An international network of researchers has been formed as a result of this workshop.

CCIC’s successor, the Institute for Conflict Research, is continuing this work, by organising a second visit from Mr Otunnu in December 2001, and by continuing research on young people affected by various aspects of the Troubles
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©ICR 2001 Last Updated on Thursday, January 9, 2003 11:10 AM