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‘Reaching the Margins’ Building Inclusiveness within hard to
reach Communities
Open Days 2011
Wednesday 12 October 2011
Joint Chairs
Agnes Lindeman-Maes Head of Unit, DG Regio
Pat Colgan, Chief Executive of the Special EU
Programmes Body
The Special EU Programmes Body (SEUPB)
• A public body created as a result of a treaty between two member states - the Belfast (Good Friday) Agreement and The British and Irish Government Act 1999
• Managing Authority for cross-border EU Programmes in Northern Ireland and the Border Region of Ireland and parts of the west coast of Scotland
• The Body promotes North/South participation in INTERREG IVB and IVC Transnational and Inter-regional programmes
• Provides advice to both member states on future funding issues.
Population
2.1 million
Size
25,691 sq km
All six counties of Northern Ireland and six border counties of Ireland
The Geography PEACE Programme
Challenges in the region
Two different cultures
Challenges in the region
Community relations
Ethnic minorities
Challenges in the region
Cross-border cooperation
History of the PEACE Programmes
PEACE Programmes - EU’s positive response to the Northern Ireland peace process. Initiative of MEP’s and European Commission.
PEACE I (1995) – Addressed the immediate legacy of the conflict and took advantage of the opportunities arising from peace.
PEACE II (2000) – Reinforced progress towards a peaceful and stable society through economic development and cross-border co-operation.
PEACE III (2007) – Reinforcing progress towards a peaceful and stable society by promoting reconciliation.
History of the PEACE Programmes
PEACE I – 1995 to1999:
•Over 15,000 funded projects – €667 million
PEACE II – 2000 to 2006:
•Over 7,000 funded projects – €995 million
PEACE III – 2007 to 2013:
•Smaller numbers but larger scale strategic projects – €333 million
PEACE II (2000-2006) - Achievements
*According to NISRA (Northern Ireland Statistic and Research Agency, May 2010).
PEACE II (2000-2006) Number
Programme participants 868,420
Individuals participating in cross-border activities 161,599
Individuals participating in Reconciliation projects 42,772
Number of groups involved in Reconciliation Projects 1,638
Individuals gaining qualifications 100,767
Individuals entering or progressing in employment, education and training
77,652
PEACE III (2007 – 2013)
• PEACE III, Value: €333 million
• To date 78% of the total value of the programme has been committed, representing approximately €259million.
• Reconciliation at the local level (€140 million)
• Acknowledging and dealing with the past (€50 million)
• Creating shared public spaces (€82 million)
• Building capacity for a shared future (€40 million)
PEACE III (2007 – 2013) - Achievements
Groundwork NI
• Project: ‘Reconciling Communities
Through Regeneration’
• Assistance: £988,307
• Regenerates local areas and reduces
displays of sectarian division i.e.
Peace walls, murals, flags, painted
kerb stones etc.
Peace wall, North Belfast
PEACE III (2007 – 2013) - Achievements
WAVE Trauma Centre
• Project: ‘Back to the Future’ project
•Assistance: €300,000
•Support programme offered to young people aged 5-25 years who have been affected by the conflict.
•Offers trauma counselling, educational support and citizenship training on a cross-community basis.
Participants perform a play recounting their experiences of the conflict
PEACE III (2007 – 2013) - Achievements
Rural Development Council
•Project: B.R.I.C. (Building Relationships in Communities)
•Assistance: £3.5million
•Encourage greater levels of social integration in the housing sector.
•Provide training programmes to residents groups in 80 housing estates across NI.
•Facilitate better residential planning in the border areas.
PEACE III (2007 – 2013) - Achievements
Irish Football Association (IFA)
• Project: ‘Football for All’
•Assistance: £354,696
•Project works at local level with clubs and fans to eradicate sectarianism and promote good relations in sport.
•Provides ongoing ‘Good Relations’ awareness training for coaches and volunteers.
PEACE III (2007 – 2013) - Achievements
Ilex Urban Regeneration
• Project: Peace Bridge
•Assistance: £14,677,823
•Iconic Peace Bridge which will link the former military base at Ebrington to the Guildhall.
•Physical symbol of change, encouraging greater level of cross-community engagement, peace and reconciliation.
Peace bridge Launch, Derry-Londonderry
• The visible and invisible legacy of the conflict
• The importance of the local dimension – involving communities and their elected representatives – building local capacity
• The ‘post-conflict’ generation
• Build awareness of opportunities and break down barriers to co-operation
• A long journey with positive steps taken – many more to go
Some lessons from the PEACE Programmes
A case study of work with young men – YouthAction Northern Ireland
“The patience of peace in a runaway world”
Martin McMullan
The challenge within Northern Ireland – structural inequalities
RELIGION AND CULTURE
• Sectarianism - an intersection of religion, politics and territorialism.
• Sectarianism: “a complex set of problems – including dividing, demonising and dominating – which typically arise from malignant interactions of religion and politics.” Leichty and Clegg 2001
• Dealing with the past / securing the future
XENOPHOBIA
• Being proactive in addressing organised hatred and hate crimes - minority groups based on race, ethnicity, sexual identity and sex/gender
CLASS, POVERTY AND ECONOMIC MARGINALISATION
• Poverty, unemployment, housing, low education (and high education), age, location
Research Findings: It’s always in the back of your mind
• Visible presence of ‘conflict’
• Subliminal messages (graffiti etc)
• Split cities and divided rural areas – social apartheid & exclusion
• Ongoing fears, prejudices & suspicions
• Bounded contentment / Young people leaving the area
• Gender differences & experiences / The construction & impact of masculine identities & gender conditioning on young men
Young men: victims and perpetrators of violence
• Violence - a form of young men’s frustrations, confusion, powerlessness leading to violence/aggression
• Difficulties in avoiding violence
• Confidence & skills to deal with violence
• Tensions between expected peaceful societal expectations & yet traditional male expectations to be strong and independent.
“As a young man I am always worried about where I am, where I can go and where I can live in the future. The fear of violence,
it’s always in the back of your mind.” (young person)
• Private and public worlds of young men
The role and contribution of youth work
• Youth work (educational) - society emerging from many years of conflict and unrest. Youth workers at cold-face /responsive
• Youth work - supporting young people’s participation in a society moving away from conflict towards peace.
• Underpinned beliefs: human rights, equality of opportunity and participative democracy. (inclusion)
• Building human and social capital / capacity building
• Connecting civil and political life
• Work with young men:
Challenging the normality of violence
The realities of violence for young men
Activities must be proactive / inclusive
YouthAction Northern Ireland
• Young people: explore the impact of the conflict on their attitudes, perceptions & behaviours.
• Young people: actively play a role in creating a shared, different, stable, fair & peaceful future.
• Full community approach in supporting individual or group knowledge, understanding & skills (human capital) and in supporting co-operation & social relations (social capital).
• Collective & co-ordinated approach to maximise potential. “support adults to learn to talk with young people about sectarianism & controversial issues.”
• Sociologist Emile Durkheim, in writing about social solidarity, refers to the term “collective effervescence.”
• Young people’s collective conscience & action / contagious behaviour/ energy stimulating social action and change.
Young men’s development / young men and violence EU Funding
• Sustained interventions under the EU’s PEACE Programme, approximately £6.5 million since 1996.
• 1997 – 2011 Peace funding EUSSPPR Targeting young men from disadvantaged communities & areas of conflict
Focus:
• New & imaginative approaches / health needs / violence
A model:
• John Paul Lederach : 4 core components that inter-link in supporting practices in peace building, reconciliation & reconstruction.
1. Centrality of relationships (listening, understanding, appreciative enquiry)
2. Practice of paradoxical curiosity (scratch beneath the surface)
3. Provide a space for creative act
4. The willingness to risk
Successful interventions / initiatives
• SEUPB – YESIP Young men & violence
• Targeting areas of multiple deprivation (poverty, division, violence)
• Outcomes based measurement
CASE STUDY: Glengormley (interface)
1. relationships
2. curiosity and questioning
3. creative acts / meeting the other
4. joined action (risk)
Key learnings and conclusions (outcomes)
YOUNG MEN
• Young men having opportunity to consider the journey from BOY to MAN – assessing deeply rooted assumptions of what this is
• Exploring links between masculinity & violence / develop skills
• Young men value such unique opportunities / sensitive issues / mental & emotional well being
• Learning methods
• The approach of the worker (relationship, skills, confidence, outreach)
GENERAL
• Preparing young people for a changing society
• Exposing young people to new experiences & to the ‘gift’ of the other
• Young people having a sense of connection, purpose & contribution
• Preparing young people to influence and lobby
Patience of peace in a runaway world
• Young people having an open & ‘searching’ attitude
• Mutual understanding, respect & integration through meaningful encounters & sharing spaces (not avoiding interaction with each other)
• Safer mobility among young people across ‘divides’ (building bridges)
• Support active citizenship: Youth action by young people (caught not taught)
• Rather than peace being a mirage it can become a reality / results
• Increased interest in behaviour & activities of an inclusive culture – reduced hatred & oppression
• Increased capacity to inspire others to jump on board the “peace train”
• Stronger, peaceful & more sustainable communities
• Building safer, shared & confident communities
“There aren’t very many people different to me living in my street. People need to be educated about others and difference.” (young person)
Contact details
• YouthAction NI
- Martin Mc Mullan – Assistant Director: [email protected]
- Michael Mc Kenna – Work With Young Men Team Leader: [email protected]
• Centre for young men’s studies – INCORE International Centre for Conflict & Peace Studies@ University of Ulster
- Dr Ken Harland – [email protected]
Zorica Angelovska Kovachevikj,
Head of Sector for Cooperation with Churches, Religious Communities
and Groups
Commission for Relations with Religious Communities and Groups
Skopje, Republic of Macedonia
Religious diversity
• The Constitution of Republic of Macedonia guarantees the freedom of religious confession, as well as the right to express one's faith or belief, either alone or in community with others, in public or private
• Major religions that exist in Macedonia for centuries are the Orthodox, Islamic, Catholic, Jewish and Protestant religions.
• The Macedonian Orthodox Church, as well as the Islamic Religious Community, the Catholic Church, the United Methodist Church and the Jewish Community are listed in the Constitution of Republic of Macedonia. All of them, along with the rest of the existing religious communities and groups are separate from the state and equal before the law.
• Macedonia, as a multiethnic and multi-confessional state, pays special attention to the religious diversity.
Religious background
• The two major religious communities are the Macedonian Orthodox Church (approximately 65 %) and the Islamic Community (32 %).
• There is a general correlation between the ethnicity and the religious affiliation; majority of the Orthodox believers are ethnic Macedonians, and the majority of the Muslim believers are ethnic Albanians.
• During the 2001 conflicts in Macedonia the participants of the conflict began to destroy, set fire to and blow up religious facilities, churches, monasteries, cemeteries, mosques and other sacred temples.
• To prevent the deepening both of the national and religious hatred among the population, the five religious leaders signed a joint declaration calling the believers of all religious confessions to restrain themselves from destroying religious facilities and to promote peace, understanding and religious tolerance among the peoples.
• The religious leaders of the five religious communities established an Inter-religious Council, which mission is to resolve the possible issues appearing from the daily practicing of the faith.
Recent legislation
• Law on the Legal Position of a Church, Religious Community and Religious Group. It regulates the establishment and the legal status of a church, religious community and religious group, as well as the manifestation of religion and religious association.
• Restitution Law. It made possible the most of the property to be returned to the religious communities or compensated for.
• Law on Major Religious Holidays. Some religious holidays are observed as national holidays (Easter, Christmas and Ramazan Bajram), other are not national holidays but government-designated religious holidays for the adherents of the Christian, Islamic and Jewish faiths.
• Introduction of Ethics of Religions as an optional subject in the elementary schools. Getting knowledge of both one’s own religion and other’s religion.
Legal Position of the Religious Communities and Groups
• In 2007 a new Law on the Legal position of a Church, Religious Community and Religious Group was passed, which expresses the state’s respect to the identities of the churches, religious communities and religious groups and other forms of religious association.
• This Law is a result of intensive consultations and collaboration with other state bodies, non-government organisations and religious communities. It was approved and given positive remark by the Venice Commission, OSCE, State Department, as well as by other international organizations.
• It follows the spirit of democracy and liberalism and is in accordance with the international declarations and conventions on the right to freely manifest religion or belief.
Some realized Initiatives
• Republic of Macedonia promotes initiatives which are aimed to fostering tolerance, spiritual values and cohesion, against all prejudice, intolerance, exclusion and oppression:
• 2006 Balkans Conference, attended by representatives of religious communities, scientific institutions and media from the Balkans countries.
• 2007 and 2010 World Conferences on Dialogue among the Religions and Civilizations,
• 2008 Rabbi Conference
• 2008 Catholic Bishopric Conference
• 2010 Islamic Conference, attended by the Islamic leaders from the Balkans countries
Jewish Community of RM
• The Jewish Community is a religious community with around 300 members, most of them living in Skopje, and a few in Shtip and Bitola. Although the smallest, it is involved in all areas of the social and political life of Republic of Macedonia.
• In May 2008, the Jewish Community, in collaboration with the Macedonian Government, organised The First Balkan Rabbinical Conference, attended by about 25 rabbis from all over the world, including the Chief Rabbis of Moscow, Croatia, Serbia, Romania, Strasbourg, Paris, as well as other eminent representatives of international Jewish organisations.
• On that occasion, the Macedonian Jewish Community after a long period of 60 years, got a new native Rabbi born in Macedonia and inaugurated at the Macedonian Synagogue "Beth Yaakov".
• In honor of the memory of the holocaust victims and opening the Memorial Holocaust Center the five religious leaders adopted a joint Declaration.
Key objectives
• To protect and encourage all initiatives that can constitute bridges of connection and understanding, beyond cultural and religious barriers.
• To develop inter-civilization and inter-religious dialogue by building and strengthening mutual exchanges and dissemination of best practices.
• To provide educational, social and economic opportunities for the new generations, as a mainspring for peaceful co-existence and sustainable future.
• To encourage, whenever possible, intercultural events and actions aimed at promoting tolerance, and coexistence, and fight against all manifestations of prejudices, intolerance and exclusion.
• To recognize that all cultures and religions have distinctive qualities and traits, and flourish in different social environments.
• To reduce the misperceptions of these differences and cultural gaps and to promote mutual respect between communities and peoples.
• To emphasize the role and importance of inter-civilization and inter-religious dialogue in promoting human rights, particularly in strengthening the right to freedom of thought, conscience, religion and belief and in addressing global challenges such as those of peace, security, poverty, sustainable development, etc.
• To respect the public display of religious symbols and celebration of religious events.
• To emphasize the role of peace and human rights education, as well as acquiring knowledge about religions and beliefs, in providing a basis for tolerance, mutual respect and understanding, in a spirit of openness and inclusiveness.
Contact details:
• Zorica Angelovska Kovachevikj
• Commission for Relations with Religious Communities and Groups
• Blvd Goce Delcev bb, MTV Building, 18th floor, 1000 Skopje, Republic of Macedonia
• Ph +389 2 3226 777; fax +389 2 3226 353; cell +389 75 36 36 60
• E-mail: [email protected]; [email protected]
• Web: www.kovz.gov.mk
ONE HOME, ONE FUTURE –
BUILDING HOMES WITH THE POOREST ROMA PEOPLE
Zamfir Todor – Program Manager, Habitat for Humanity Romania
More than 150,000 families, 1 million children and adults,live in inhumane conditions in Romania
- Roma represent the most intractable social issue facing Romania.
- Other countries have successfully integrated Roma communities using housing as the lynchpin of community development
- The large frequency of marginalized communities, the clustering of beneficiary families and the magnitude of the problem country-wide make the intervention cheaper per family served as the programme grows.
Roma are unquestionably the poorest,
most marginalized ethnic group in Europe
As a part of the “decade of Roma inclusion”, a ten-year European Union campaign started in 2005 focusing on developing Roma communities to integrate them, decent housing has been recognized as one of the necessary steps towards closing the development gaps between Roma and the rest of society.
However, Romania is failing to meet the targets of the decade of Roma inclusion, with almost all housing indicators showing just how far behind the Roma still are.
Many roma are far too destitute to maintain the homes that they have now, which
are “dilapidated”, overcrowded shacks without access to basic infrastructure
An incremental solution, where immediate needs are met first, would have the greatest impact.
A variety of services, ranging from land tenure to thermo renovations to digging wells, could greatly increase the standard of living in Roma communities at a minimal cost.
In addition, the incremental solution could require that families repay all or a portion of their first intervention to receive a second phase. This would avoid saddling marginalized, poor families with homes they can neither pay nor care for.
Why HFHRo is needed
Trust in the communitiesRoma communities have been so thoroughly marginalized that they often no longer have daily interaction with the general society. Their interactions are limited to the police, doctors and teachers who discriminate against them. Politicians and NGO’s promise to help them and then renege.
Why HFHRo is needed
Largest investmentin one of 4 pillars of RomaCommunitydevelopment
1. Housing
2. Job skills development
3. Health
4. Education
Future Solutions (by HFHI sector) - Sustainable Building
Settlement Upgrade renovation costs (construction) for:
roof- $750house frame- $1,500windows (2) and door (1)- $500fireplace/stove/chimney- $210thermo insulation (roof)- $400foundation extension- $400misc.- $200
Total: $3,960
Sustainable Building
Settlement Upgrade
Electricity linking to city power grid cost- $ 300
Rural HousingNew home cost- $16,000
Green Building DesignRain water collection system, cheaper, less risk of entering in debtCost- $ 80
Community center- green technology, cheap, manpower intensive, equally beneficial to everyone and start for self-help building solutions with Habitat’s guidanceApprox~ $7,000
Land Tenure- securing the legality of dwellings
Mayors give families legal ownership of their land when we invest in the communityPaid for by Mayor’s office- value $350
Livelihood/Income Generation Education facilities - By building a green community center we would help dozens of families with one building and a partnership.A partner organisation would work at job skills development while we provide the community center.
Community InfrastructureJob skill training by our partners using the community center; again, dozens of families served from a single building
Financial LiteracyFinancial literacy for subsistence living
WASHWaterEstablishing new protected water points
Solution for poorer communities to shorten water retrieval time and water safetyCost: ~ $ 1,000/communityEstablishing new protected water pointsLinking families’ homes to city water supplyCost: ~ $ 300/family
Hygiene (non-construction partner led)Partners promote healthy behavior change with our community centerHuman waste management
Individual clean septic tanksCost: ~ $ 300/family
Environmental HealthConstructing animal pens Debris clean upsCost: ~ $ 5/ day/ person
Financial Plan
Traditional non-profit loans
Housing
Repairs/Renovations - incremental loans, small amounts, future increments of intervention based on re-payment*Families can afford to pay ~ $20/month
New Homes - For families that are able to enter into the traditional new home programme and can pay a full monthly payment.Large number of FS per dollar spent
- Incremental interventions for construction
- Community centers- WASH
[email protected] +40 724 292541 www.habitat.ro
Question and Answer Session
Conclusions
Pat Colgan, SEUPB
Closing Statement
Agnes Lindemans, DG Regio
