By J.W. Oliver
A group of Protestant and Roman Catholic teenagers from Northern Ireland are in Lincoln County with a program that works
toward peace in the region.
The participants, ages 14-16, live in Belfast, a city where “peace walls” separate Protestant areas from Roman Catholic
areas to prevent the inhabitants of either side from throwing bricks, rocks or worse onto the other side.
The conflict has as much to do with politics as religion. The Protestant parties favor the status quo, with Northern Ireland
part of the United Kingdom. The Catholic parties would like to see the region secede from the U.K. and become part of
Ireland.
A series of riots in the region this summer resulted in injuries to dozens of police officers. “Everybody hates the police,”
according to one teenager, and people throw Molotov cocktails at the heavily armored police vans that patrol the city.
The teenagers in Lincoln County are no strangers to the conflict.
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and Coastal Kids students look on. The Friends Forever program brings Protestant and Roman Catholic teenagers from Northern Ireland to Maine to promote peace in the region. The two-week stay includes service projects, like this one, in the host community. (J.W. Oliver photo) |
A young Protestant talked about her family’s lingering animosity toward Catholics after the Irish Republican Army planted a
bomb in her grandfather’s shop years ago.
A Catholic teenager, in the same interview, said he has relatives who belong to the outlawed paramilitary group.
“We all come from different backgrounds, different schools, different religions,” said Jenni Newell, a participant in the
program.
“I’m best buds with him and he’s a Catholic,” said Jordan Shearer, a Protestant, gesturing to one of his peers.
Back home, participants agree, these friendships are rare, but divisions quickly dissolve on the trip.
“We’re not different,” Shearer said. “We’re all the same. We’re human beings.”
The New Hampshire nonprofit Friends Forever Inc. brings delegations of 10 teenagers apiece to host communities in the U.S.,
including Lincoln County, for two weeks.
Friends Forever works with Catholic and Protestant youth in Northern Ireland as well as Arab and Jewish teenagers in
Israel.
The teenagers live together in an unfamiliar community without access to cellphones, the Internet or any contact with family
and friends.
“They have only each other to help overcome the emotional and physical components of this intensive period focused around
self-exploration, community service and team-building activities,” according to the Friends Forever website.
The local delegates are enthusiastic about the program.
“It’s a good chance to get to know other people’s stories,” Newell said of the program.
“There are pros and cons to each side,” Yasmin Noor said, a new concept for some of the students, who said schools often
teach a one-sided history of the complex conflict.
“I’ve never been able to hear the other side,” Newell said.
Here in Lincoln County, the delegation lives at Camp Kieve in Nobleboro. Kieve-Wavus Education Inc. provides housing, meals
and team-building activities for the participants.
Friends Forever came to Lincoln County by chance in 2006, when housing for a delegation to Portland fell through. An
emergency call to Kieve began a partnership now in its seventh year.
The teenagers attend mass at St. Patrick’s Catholic Church in Newcastle one Sunday; services at The Second Congregational
Church in Newcastle the next. They visit Lincoln Academy and work on community service projects at local nonprofits.
Newcastle Rotarians Gary and Judy Speers coordinate the Midcoast Maine program.
The Speers are passionate about working with children and young people with challenges or trouble in their lives. Gary
Speers was a police officer; Judy Speers a teacher, and the Speers have been foster parents to children from Germany and
Russia.
The Friends Forever delegation will return home Saturday, Nov. 2, and the Speers are confident the delegates will continue
to work toward the Friends Forever mission to “promote trust, empathy and friendships among cultures in conflict.”
The Speers stay in touch with all the participants through Facebook, including the teenagers behind some of the most
dramatic success stories in the program.
Ruairi Kennedy, a 2012 graduate, now represents Northern Ireland as the sole youth member of the U.K. parliament, Gary
Speers said.
Louise Madden, who came to Lincoln County as a shy 15-year-old in 2010, started a charity, Hampers of Happiness, to deliver
baskets of food, household goods and toys to families in need.
Ellen Hendry, a girl from “the estates” or housing projects, came to Lincoln County after her younger brother was shot and
killed during an outbreak of sectarian violence.
“Needless to say, she was pretty bitter when she got here,” Gary Speers said.
As the delegation’s time in Maine came to a close, Hendry told her story at dinner one night with the word “hopeless” on a
homemade sign taped to her sweater. As she concluded her story, she ripped away the “-less” part of the sign.
“Now I know there’s hope,” she told her new friends. “I know we can stop this.”
