Former Beirut hostage Terry Waite in Ballymena

The Project worked with 30 individual clerics to promote peace building opportunities within the North East area and offered opportunities for clergy within and across denominations to work together on projects with their congregations to promote tolerance and respect for others.

The Clergy Peace Building Project was funded under the European Union’s PEACE III Programme which is managed on behalf of the Special EU Programmes Body by the North East PEACE III Partnership.

At the closing conference Mr Waite shared insights gained from 30 years of international service in some of the world’s major conflict regions. The event also heard from a number of participating clergy who outlined the positive contribution the project has made to their work in peace building and how it has allowed greater relationship building between the clergy of the North East.

The project which launched in November 2012 was open to all active clergy within the Ballymoney, Ballymena, Coleraine, Larne, Limavady and Moyle council areas.

Over the past year the project has worked directly with clergy to allow them the opportunity to reflect upon their role in building peace and tolerance within their respective church communities. It also offered support to participating clergy to work with their congregations in order to promote a more diverse, tolerant, inclusive and respectful society throughout the North East area.

During the lifecycle of the project a total of 13 resource allocation projects have been developed and delivered by the participating clergy jointly, illustrating the grassroots peace building activity currently happening in the region and providing a solid foundation for on-going and future initiatives to further support peace building work among the clergy

Delia Close of the North East PEACE III Partnership, said: “This unique project offered opportunities for clergy from different denominations to work together, with their congregations, on projects that promoted tolerance and respect.”

“The religious leaders involved, and their congregations, were challenged to engage wholeheartedly with each other and share experiences. Those taking part discovered how, by working within their communities to promote peace building, they were also able to address issues like sectarianism and racism.”

“One of the great successes of this project was participants pooling together funding to create larger collaborative projects which were developed on a cross community basis. This truly indicates just how successful the ethos of working together was during this project, regardless of denomination.”