Building Bridges for Peace: From Colorado to Northern Ireland to the Middle East

Six years ago this summer, on many a drizzly afternoon, I could be found sitting along the bank of the River Shannon in Limerick, Ireland. I had arrived in Ireland several months before, in the fall of 2000, to pursue an M.A. degree in Peace and Development Studies at the University of Limerick. I was there as an inaugural George Mitchell scholar, a program of the US-Ireland Alliance, a non-profit organization dedicated to strengthening ties between Ireland and the United States. My interest in peace and conflict issues, and in the Northern Ireland case specifically, was initially sparked at the University of Colorado at Boulder. I graduated with a BA in International Affairs in 2000.

During that long, wet summer, I was trying to finish my MA thesis exploring the challenges political leaders faced in implementing the 1998 Belfast or Good Friday Agreement. The Agreement marked a formal end to 30 years of violence between the predominantly Catholic nationalist and predominantly Protestant unionist communities during a period called ‘the Troubles’. I was curious to know how political leaders were, or were not, succeeding in setting up the new institutions that were outlined in the Agreement. To find out, I spent the spring traveling back and forth between Limerick and Belfast, Northern Ireland, conducting interviews with the political leaders themselves. I had the privilege of interviewing Nobel Prize winners John Hume and David Trimble (Mr. Hume is a former leader of the Social Democratic and Labour Party and Mr. Trimble was then First Minister of the new government), Sinn Fein leaders Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness (Mr. McGuinness is currently Deputy First Minister), Ian Paisely, Jr. (son of Reverend Ian Paisley of the Democratic Unionist Party, current First Minister), former Women’s Coalition leader Monica McWilliams, and the late David Ervine of the Progressive Unionist Party and others.

And that summer, having listened over and over to my interview tapes, to these men and women who in many ways determined the future of the historic new coalition government, I struggled. I didn’t struggle to comprehend their differing opinions (that, of course, I expected), nor did I struggle to understand their lyrical northern accents (my ear had become trained by then), I struggled to find the words to comment on a conflict that was not my own. I wondered how I, as an American graduate student, could be qualified to make observations, much less recommendations, in a centuries old conflict.

For most of us our college years are transformative. They confront us with the kinds of experiences that make us question ourselves, our place in the world, and the mark we hope to make in it. And my time in Ireland as a Mitchell scholar both altered who I am and directed my life’s course. Ultimately, I did complete my thesis (in large part due to my kind, wise and firm advisor who saw through my requests for an extension) and in the process I found a new voice and identity as a scholar concerned with how communities transform from the politics of antagonism to the politics of partnership. I also discovered a new dream. When I returned to Colorado from Ireland, I wanted to create a school-based program to teach high school and college age students about the Northern Ireland conflict – not so that they could go there and “help,” but for precisely the opposite reason. I wanted them to learn about the conflict in Northern Ireland, as I had, to wrestle with questions of injustice, governance, security, human rights, and others in order to become better equipped for finding solutions to these issues back home in the United States. I wanted to be part of educating a generation of young Americans who have firsthand knowledge of the complexities of both inter-group and intra-group conflict and who have the tools to build collaborative partnerships to solve global problems.

Months later I met Melodye Feldman, Founding Executive Director of Seeking Common Ground (SCG), a Denver-based organization dedicated to creating peaceful communities worldwide by imparting communication and leadership skills to young adults from conflict areas. One of the aspects of the organization that most impressed me was that its programs included American participants. I have now been with SCG for more than 3 years and I direct SCG’s flagship Building Bridges for Peace (BBfP) program which for nearly 15 years has brought together American, Israeli and Palestinian teen women for a yearlong leadership development and peacebuilding program. People often ask me why Americans are involved. I want to ask them back: How could they not be? If we are talking about peacefully resolving conflict worldwide, how can Americans be excluded? Now more than ever I believe that young Americans need, and want, to gain the skills necessary to communicate, cooperate and collaborate with the ‘other’ – whether that ‘other’ happens to live across a city or across an ocean. I believe that we – as members of the U.S. community – have much to learn about how to create a truly just, equitable, inclusive and peaceful society. And I have hope that we are moving in the right direction. Year after year, I see American participants of SCG’s programs grapple with questions about their role in creating peace in the communities in which they live. I see these young people become agents of change. And SCG’s work, and the number of young people we reach, is growing.

This summer, SCG is launching the pilot BBfP program for teen men. Now we will be able to reach young American, Israeli and Palestinian women and men and give them the tools they need to work as partners in achieving the change they wish to see in the world. There is also the new Building Bridges for Peace-Denver program (BBfP-Denver), designed for female and male high school students from throughout the Denver metro area, and conducted in partnership with Denver Public Schools and in consultation with the national organization Facing History and Ourselves. This yearlong program includes an international enhancement trip to a region of the world experiencing conflict. This past March, I led the BBfP-Denver trip to Northern Ireland. While I have been back to Ireland, north and south, several times since I left Limerick in 2002, this was the first time that I have been back as an educator. As you now know, this was a dream fulfilled. To watch these young people engage with their peers, meet with community leaders, and wrestle with how what they were seeing in Northern Ireland is and is not similar to what they face here in Denver was gratifying beyond words. On March 29, just 3 days after the historic meeting between Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams and Democratic Unionist Party Leader Revered Ian Paisley, when they announced their commitment to work together in the coalition government (a promise they realized on May 8 when the government reopened), participants met at Stormont, Northern Ireland’s parliament buildings, and asked political leaders about present challenges and future possibilities.

Since returning home to Colorado, participants and their parents have told us that it was a life-changing trip. And it was for me too. When asked about what she had learned on the trip, one participant said that she now believes that “in order to make peace you need to work in your own community [because] then you will have more of an understanding on how to work in other communities around the world.” I think back to my own learning, to my time at CU where I first became interested in Northern Ireland, to my time in Limerick and to my MA research. I think of the men and women who so generously gave of their time to be interviewed and in so doing played a pivotal role in facilitating my understanding of the region. I think of the mentors and advisors who have supported me along the way helping to advance my commitment to the peacebuilding field. I hope that they feel their time was well spent.

Erin Breeze is the Associate Director of Seeking Common Ground and Director of the Building Bridges for Peace programs. She lives in Denver with her husband and their two dogs.