Local pupils take part in ‘Change Makers’ project

PUPILS from Lisnagarvey High School and St Patrick’s Academy Lisburn came together recently to jointly look at how their identity has been influenced by where they grew up.

The Year 8 pupils were participating in a local community relations project called ‘Change Makers’ which has been working extensively with schools in the Lisburn area for the past year and a half.

Alison Dougherty and Peter McNiece from Change Makers have been working closely with Lisnagarvey and St. Patrick’s. Alison said: “This ‘Identity’ workshop is the first collaborative project we have organised between the two schools, and we hope it is the first of many. The young people had an opportunity to meet people from another school and explore what identity means to them and what diverse identities, cultures and religions there are in Northern Ireland.”

Peter added: “It is so encouraging to see young people from differing traditions coming together to tackle such vital issues in partnership with each other. There is so much value in pupils from two different schools working and learning together and I very much hope that the good relationships built between the pupils today will continue throughout their time in school.”

Helen Dowse, Head of Religious Studies from Lisnagarvey, said: “Changemakers and St Patrick’s Academy provided the perfect setting for student interaction, relationship formation and discussion. The activities positively affected learning in terms of appreciation of others’ differences and similarities at an individual student, institutional and broader community level.”

Mr James Ward, Vice Principal from St. Patrick’s, said: “We are pleased to continue our tradition of collaboration with Lisnagarvey High School. It’s very positive to be able to progress from collaborating at a subject based level to pupils getting to discuss important issues together.”

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