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Summer 2004 - Roosevelt students meet director, Noreen Campbell and students from Hazelwood College who are visiting Seattle from Belfast, Northern Ireland.
Fall 2004 - Trip Coordinators, Amy Schwentor and Doug Holwerda form a group of 9 travelers (Miranda Smith, Andrea Sharrow, Stefanie Loomis, Hillary Watson, Aaron Berensen, Drew Ferris, Danielle Hanson, Holly McKee, and Jessica Sharrow) and begin preparation for an upcoming trip. Books, articles, interviews and movies help students understand the complex nature of the conflicts that exist in N.I. Group building activities included dancing, pizza parties, a retreat and watching movies together. Fund raisers included car washes, candy sales, a dessert auction and a letter writing.
Spring 2005 - Students boarded the plane headed for Hazelwood school in Belfast, Northern Ireland. Iain Black, the program coordinator, picked us up at the airport. We stayed in the homes of Kevin McFall, Jonathon Mawhinney, Katreana Crawford and Paul Elwood, students at Hazelwood. Teacher, Frances Shannon also took in some of our group. We got to know the city of Belfast by taking a Black Taxi Tour and hearing a lecture by Dr. Dominic Bryan from the Queens University. The Hazelwood students traveled with us along the Antrim coast to Portrush, where we spend the night in a hostel after visiting the Giant’s Causeway. From there we went on to Derry/Londonderry, where we had a tour of the old city and a history lesson that showed the sight of “Bloody Sunday”. Most importantly we began to bond with the students from Hazelwood, who share with us their feelings and perspectives of the conflicts and life in Northern Ireland. We played music and sang. Iain was a consummate host, driving and pointing out places of beauty and significance, not to mention making a music CD from each of the group members favorite songs. The Roosevelt students came home educated, inspired and with new friends.
Late Spring 2005 – A new group of students, Recy Sarsoza, Peter Fantham, Grace Lautman, Karri Ridgeway, Ellie Deal, Salma Mehter, Graham Madison, Hailey Mackay, Amalia Zeidman, Krista Friedli, Katherine Mahoney and Carrie Chin, were selected from a large pool of applicants to be the next group to travel to Northern Ireland.
Fall 2005 – New coordinators Janine Magidman and Danny Rock join the Belfast team. Fund raising projects expand to include a Dance-a-thon, 24 hours of dancing to a variety of music. Pledges raised about $3000.
In November the four Hazelwood students and Iain Black arrived in Seattle for 11 days of Hands for a Bridge experiences. This included school days with host students, an exchange which allowed them to see other schools in Seattle, a weekend retreat full of art music and drama, an open mic, at which each of them performed, visits to the Experimental Music Project, a professional basketball game, a hip-hop concert, a video project on the streets of Seattle and a whole lot more. And again, most importantly, a bond was created between students from Seattle and Belfast.
In December, our annual auction raised more than $18,000 to help support our trips to and from Northern Ireland and South Africa.
Winter 2006 – In preparation for our trip in February, the group had regular meetings and a weekend retreat. Our goal was to become a “good group”, unified and connected.
In February we traveled to Belfast and were taken in once again. Our host students were Katreana Crawford, Jonathan Mawhinney, Kevin McFall, Paul Elwood, Conor Mckillop, Ciarnan Moore, Colm Fulton, Chris Brownlee, and Naomi McCorkell. Maria Carey was our staff host, having picked up the responsibilities after Iain left his job at Hazelwood. Noreen Campbell and Francis.. were also instrumental in supporting the program while we were there. This trip varied somewhat because school was off for semester break, which allowed us three full days to “workshop” together, building group bonds and exploring ideas together through dialogue. Once again, creative play was at the heart of our interactions. We collectively developed five “pillars” to guide our group interactions. They were: humility, risk-taking, connection, dialogue, and understanding. We traveled to the western part of Northern Ireland, this time taking two nights, one in the town of Bushmills and the other in Derry/Londonderry. We were hosted by Gerard Diver, a city councilman, who arranged our stay at a hostel, tours of the city and city council chambers and got us tickets to a wonderful play at the Millenium Theater.
Our itinerary was full of fun and educational things to do. Our farewell party was full of hugs and tears.
Spring 2006 – Travelers brought a slide show to classes throughout the school to educate Roosevelt students to the experiences they had and to the history and current issues in Northern Ireland.
A new group of students were selected from an applicant pool. They are Chloe Huber, Abby Neel, Alice Seo, Pacheena Shuen-Mitchell, Ken Christofferson, Nathan Mannheimer, Colin Hartman, Sophie Mechem, Hanna Halwas, Sten Karholm, Claire Oatey and Grace Robinson. Two new coordinators, Patrick Moriarty and Wendy Krakauer, will accompany them on the next year trip.
Movie list:
Leap of Faith
Some Mother’s Son
My Left Foot
Bloody Sunday
In the Name of the Father
My Brother’s War
The Boxer
Cal
Four Days in July
About Adam
Angela’s Ashes
Waking Ned Devine
This is the Sea
The Secret of Roan Inish
A Man of No Importance
Michael Collins
The Commitments
The Informer
Book list:
The Belfast Diary by John Conroy
The Troubles: Ireland’s Ordeal 1966-1996 and the Search for Peace by Tim Pat Coogan
Faithful Tribe: The Loyalist Institutions by Ruth Dudley Edwards
Hope Against History and The Price of My Soul by Bernadette Devlin
Interface: Flashpoints in Northern Ireland by Colm Heatley
Through Terror and Adversity by Jack McKee
Ten Men Dead by David Beresford |
