HFB International Partners:

Northern Ireland

Derry/Londonderry is a city that reflects the long history of sectarian tensions and troubles going back to the 1600’s on the island of Ireland. Despite the Good Friday Accord brokered in 1995, intended to bring a lasting peace between the Unionists/Loyalists and the Republicans, two factions holding opposing views on the political status of Northern Ireland, the largely Protestant-Catholic split between communities continues to play a role in the daily lives of many in Derry/Londonderry.

HFB Partners with Oakgrove Integrated College, one of the few integrated high schools open to both Catholic and Protestant students in a country where education has been divided. Oakrove was founded in 1992 as a result of dialogue between dedicated parents and community members who saw the need for integrated secondary education to bring students together from both sides of the River Foyle. They face the challenges we face, to communicate across divides between communities. Our shared mission is to reach out to others, to find common ground through the arts, to open up dialogue and to resolve conflict peacefully.

South Africa

Cape Town is a city that reflects the long history of apartheid, the forced separation of races by the South African government, which ended in 1992. Though segregation is no longer the law of the land, Townships remain as racially separated, economically depressed regions.

HFB Partners with two schools in Capetown, Isilimela Comprehensive School in Langa, the oldest Cape Town township, and, in stark contrast, Bellville High School in Bellville, a Cape Town suburb which is a former, privileged “white” neighborhood.

Through the Hands for a Bridge program, students from different cultural, racial, and economic backgrounds meet, laugh and create new pathways through dialogue, art, music and poetry.