SUMMER 2003Karen Paarz
Seaville Meeting
an2Man Northern Ireland Program began as a product of my spiritual leading for peace-making in the land of my foremothers. It has grown by leaps and bounds, and currently the project is under the care of Seaville Monthly Meeting. Salem Quarter united with the project at its December 2002 quarterly meeting for business.
After my father’s funeral, my mother shared what I consider to be a family secret: “You know, Karen, your grandmother’s people were Irish.” Throughout my life I had only heard about the German side of my father’s lineage. My father’s mother’s people were in fact Ulster Scots of Northern Ireland. Now I understood why my father stopped speaking to his aunts when he married my Polish Catholic mother, and why my mother’s family had to seek permission from parish priests to attend a Protestant wedding. Religious freedom in America had not filtered down to the family level, and had created family division.
As I learned more about my grandmother’s homeland, my heart broke when I studied the legacy of The Troubles and the impact of sectarianism on Northern Irish youth. It took me about three years to respond to the “quiet voice of God” and begin to work on a peace project. Today, as I recall the seemingly discordant events in my life, I am still amazed at the result, Man2Man Northern Ireland. My friends, family, and colleagues, are similarly amazed at the “good luck” associated with this project. However, I know that I am working from the Light Within.
The program will serve Protestant and Catholic, marginalized, antisocial adolescent males of Derry and will be conducted in a Republican site and a Loyalist site. The teens, aged 15 to 17, have committed offenses such as burglary and car theft in their own communities. The offending youth are at risk of receiving punishment beatings from informal police systems (paramilitaries) in their own communities. Man2Man offers nonviolent options to these informal community systems and will integrate Quaker principals of peace, harmony, equality, and justice within the project.
Phase 1 is the Life Skills Development component. Phase 2, Reparative Justice and Active Community Citizenship Projects, addresses the victim. It also provides a venue for the offender to be held accountable while establishing a pathway for him to regain a meaningful role in the community. Phase 3, Job Shadowing and Cultural Diversity, will occur in the Philadelphia region with a four-week residential program at Pendle Hill. The House of Umoja, a residential service for Philadelphia African American adolescent males, will co-sponsor the Second International Youth Conference and Youth Exchange Program for African American, Quaker, and Northern Ireland youth. In Phase 4, Return to School/Job Training, teens will return to Derry and receive assistance with preparation for their future careers.
To enable graduates to remain connected, they will be invited to co-facilitate the program in Year 0, to hold reunions with advisory group members, and to become members of the advisory group. Additional participants in the project will include transatlantic university interns.
In March 2003, I traveled to Derry, under the care of Seaville Meeting, with five members of the Rutgers University Study Tour. There we conducted interviews with key stakeholders of the project. We conducted 29 interviews with adolescent males, parents, community residents, agency directors, youth workers, university interns, advisory group members, probation officers, spokespersons for paramilitary informal policing units, school counselors, and clergy.
There were 12 themes which emerged from the interviews:
- “What is the real reason for conducting the Man2Man Program key informant interviews?”
- Both sides felt that the Police Service of Northern Ireland, the probation department, and the judicial system favored the other side.
- There was a relationship between socioeconomic status and personal experience with The Troubles. The lower classes suffered the most.
- Protestants experienced fewer problems with adolescent male antisocial behavior. However, working-class Protestant and Catholic respondents were more apt to know of and describe victimization from antisocial behavior.
- Adolescent antisocial behavior was perceived as a function of illiteracy, decreased communication skills, hopelessness, and feelings of disengagement.
- All respondents agreed that the punishment beatings must end, and that the beatings were ineffective. However, no one could specifically prescribe what action could or should replace the punishment beatings.
- The formal Police Service of Northern Ireland is perceived as “soft” compared to the informal paramilitary community policing systems.
- Respondents spoke hopefully about developing new partnerships between formal police, the judiciary, and the informal community policing systems.
- There is a correlation between age and confidence in the belief that a pluralistic society can be developed, with younger citizens holding more confidence.
- Both sides feel the term “restorative justice” is offensive because Community Restorative Justice Ireland, a Sinn Fein organization, has played a part in mediation for offenders and victims and in administering rough justice.
- The term “community service” is perceived as a punishment concept. The term “active community citizenship project” was offered since both Protestants and Catholics can agree that active community citizenship is a positive outcome.
- Most respondents had positive feelings towards Quakers and the United States of America. Quakers are remembered for their help during the famine, and as antiwar pacifists. Additionally, former President Bill Clinton is considered an esteemed citizen of the USA.
Man2Man and the Goals of Salem Quarter converge in two specific areas. First, Seaville Meeting, Salem Quarter, and Pendle Hill working together on Man2Man will communicate the Quaker principles of peace, reconciliation, and restorative justice to local communities, such as Cape May County and Philadelphia, and international communities, such as Derry and Belfast. Second, direct participation in Phase 3 of Man2Man offers an opportunity for youth from Seaville Monthly Meeting and Salem Quarter, together with youth campers at Pendle Hill, to become more involved in Quaker life and the life of Salem Quarter. I predict that empty benches in monthly meetings may be filled as a result of Man2Man.
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Wednesday, February 18, 2004 at 08:19 AM
