A peace of the project: Judge students take part in the Ulster Project

• by Mary Neville ‘11
• from the September 2008 issue of The Bulldog Press

The Irish eyes were definitely smiling this summer during the Ulster Project ’08; and so were many Americans.

This year the Ulster Project was a huge success. On the island of Ireland there are two different nations. Our focus is on Northern Ireland, which is a part of the United Kingdom. For many years there has been tension and violence there because of religious differences between Catholic and Protestants. Beginning in the United States in 1975, the Project was meant to help teems steer clear from the discrimination and intolerance that had been going on for many years. By 1995, there were 25 Projects going on in the United States.

The project is meant to help teens of both religions learn tolerance and understanding. They want to bring teens of different faiths together to learn to accept people for who they are and not to judge them solely based on their religion.

Maddie Adams, Emily Burchett, Stockton Cleverly, Shaun Osgood, Meghan Short, Jeff Scott, and Joe Sloan were all participants in the Project this year. They each had an Irish teen come live with them for about a month. During that time they got to know one another and everyone else in the group.

Joe Sloan said that throughout the month he and the Irish teen “became like brothers.”

The group did many things throughout the month, such as going to Lagoon, Raging Waters, the Alpine Slide. They went shopping, on a river trip, and did various service projects and once were on the radio.

Emily Burchett said, “My favorite thing – I can’t narrow it down to just one thing. It was all fun.”

Jeff Scott said that at first the thought of having a kid some and live with him for a month was “scary, but once he arrived it was so easy.” Scott said the best part of the project was “getting so close to all the kids. I never thought that I would make such good friends in a month but I did. Scott also said, “people are just people. We were just a bunch of fifteen year olds having fun.”

There was no religious bias in the group; they all just had fun getting to know one another. Emily Burchett said that this was the best part of the summer. Many of the kids are still in contact with their Irish friends. Burchett talks to them often and wants to go to Ireland next summer so that the friendship continues.

Judge students who participated believe the Project worked and our new English teacher, Megan McDonald, agreed. Ms. McDonald participated in the project in 2002 and was one of two American counselors this year. She said, “the Northern Irish teens go back home and spread the word with their family and communities.” She believes that through the project all of the kids learn peace and “they can grow and become leaders. They learned that they can be friends with anyone, people on the other side of the world and people with different beliefs.”

The Irish kids had an impact on our Judge students and we can only hope that we had the same impact on them. All the kids said that they think this project could definitely work for Muslims and Jews. Ms. McDonald said that it could work for anyone who has a conflict. So maybe this message of peace and tolerance can go further than just Catholics and Protestants.