The programme operates on the basis of direct and reciprocal exchange of project material.

Each school group in Ireland, north and south responds in kind to the video presentations, posters and poems made by the participating school groups in Hebron and Jerusalem.

We take all this project material to the Palestinian and Israeli schools involved, working on a six week programme to enable the students there to produce their own video presentations, posters, poems and written messages.

We then return to Ireland in March/April to show the schools there the feedback from the Palestinian and Israeli schools alike.

The “magic ingredient” in the project is the video presentation which each class ultimately gets to make: students communicate on three themes - personal interests and local identities; daily realities and issues relating to the conflict; final messages expressing the relevance of universal values and rights to all young people.

The primary resources for promoting the project objectives are therefore produced by the students themselves. We believe this the transferable and re-generative aspect of such exchanges demonstrate and optimise the essential qualities of peer-learning.

How does the programme slot into the school year?

The project is scheduled into the school year as follows:

• September through December or January: preparatory module in schools in Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland.
• February through March: preparatory module in schools in Hebron and Jerusalem.
• April - May: final feedback sessions in schools in Rep. of Ireland and Northern Ireland.

We also encourage each group to organise an Awareness Day at their school. This simply involves setting up information sheets on display boards and table stands so as to encourage other students to have their hands sketched on colour A4 sheets: they would write on their “hand poster” a value from the project (peace, freedom, respect, dignity etc.) and their first name and age. As with the other class posters made by the participant school groups, these “hand posters” are subsequently posted up on the classroom walls of the schools in Hebron and Jerusalem. Last year, we collected almost 900 of them.

Visits to Ireland by Israeli and Palestinian student groups

We also arrange for a select number of the Israeli and Palestinian students to come on an eight-day visit to Ireland, accompanied by one of their respective teachers. The Palestinian group is also accompanied by a representative from the Palestinian Ministry of Education and a representative from our partner NGO in Hebron, The International Palestinian Youth League.

The Israeli group comes end of November/early December; the Palestinian group in January.

This school year, we plan to bring nine Israeli students ( representing the three Israeli schools in Jerusalem) and ten Palestinian students (representing the seven Palestinian schools in Hebron).

As the schools here understand, it is not possible to bring both groups over together, which would be an ideal chance for them to meet and discuss with each other.

Unfortunately, the realities of conflict are too close to home, particularly for the Palestinian students, to make such an encounter possible: the wider community would not look favourably on such a gesture.

These limitations however do lend their own dynamic to the project as both visiting groups have their own dedicated time with the students here.

Both groups visit each of the schools in the project in Dublin, Dundalk and Belfast, engaging in guided discussions and sharing songs and musical moments.

Likewise, both groups are welcomed officially to Dublin and Belfast by the respective Lord Mayors, with selected students from the Dublin and Belfast schools in attendance.

The visiting students are hosted by families of Dublin students.

The trips are a vital component of the project, helping our students to reach to both sides in conflict situations. The Belfast trip is especially exciting: apart from visiting the four schools, the visiting groups re also be taken around Nationalist and Loyalist areas. Both visiting groups are taken aback by the similarities with their own respective environments.

Cross-Border Weekend Event 2007

It is only logical that we also do something in our own backyard! We therefore help to provide for cross-border encounters between the Dublin and Belfast schools.

Last school year, we invited some of our Transition Year groups to enter the Young Social innovators competition. Operating on the motive of “thinking global, acting local”, we were able to encourage three Transition Year groups (from Our Lady's Grove, St. Benildus College and St. Conleth's College ) to link up with the Belfast schools, in order to devise and implement their own cross-border project, based on the work they had all done for the Israeli and Palestinian schools.

This was a significant development, particularly as it involved the student groups in developing their own initiatives in research and exchange with the three participant Belfast schools, culminating in a joint Open Discussion on the theme of Interdependence, held at St. Benildus College, Kilmacud on 23 February 2005.

These joint exercises thus provided new impetus to the project in three concrete aspects:

• as pro-active coordination between the three Dublin schools;
• as pro-active coordination between the three Dublin schools and the three Belfast schools;
• as a fully student-led project (without the presence of the Programme Manager or Project Assistant).

It should also be noted that this initiative was the first example in the YSI competition of three school groups coordinating together on one single project.

In 2007 we went a step further, in fact 160 km steps further north, by organising cross-border residential weekend for a select number of the Dublin, Dundalk and Belfast students. For more on this event, click here.