This past year has been an incredible one for Public Achievement.  Lows included the Education Minister, Catriona Ruane slashing her Community Relations Budget, and an overall downturn in the economy which is hitting the voluntary sector every bit as hard as any other sector of our economy.   These challenges were not insignificant, but fortunately for us the highs have been great, and have allowed Public Achievement to go some way toward avoiding the overall trend.

Specifically, the award of funding to the 'Driving Change' project, and the award of funding from the Atlantic Philanthropies for our WIMPS (Where Is My Public Servant?) project have given the organisation resources and profile that are unprecedented in our 11 year history. 

Driving Change is a partnership between Public Achievement, the fire services north and south of the Irish border, and a range of government departments - led by the northern Department of Health, Social Services and Public Safety.  Public Achievement will employ the five project staff (three are already in place at the time of writing) at our new Armagh Office.  It has taken much longer than we had hoped to get this project up and running, but now that it is we will unroll technical training for fire fighters (led by secondees from the Northern Ireland Fire and Rescue Service and Leitrim County Fire Service) and youth work training for volunteer fire fighters and local community members - who will in turn work with local groups of young people help improve driving and reduce road traffic collisions in border areas - where accident rates and fatalities are highest.

Through the WIMPS project we will be establishing 21 local WIMPS 'Crew' across Northern Ireland - local groups of teenagers who will cover local issues, engage with their local politicians and work collectively on a number of central campaigns.   A new site will be launched in the Spring in time for the May elections and referendum, and the year will be punctuated by events and campaigns - including a summer international youth media camp for young activists from conflict regions around the globe. 

Our 'Away from Violence' project has been having a terrific year too - with the launches of the Heritage Exhibitions - including a month in Belfast's City Hall.  Local groups continue to meet on a weekly basis and are increasingly working collaboratively on a cross-community basis on common themes and issues.  You will see a lot more of this work in the week and months ahead, along with the work of sister project - 'Breaking the Cycle'. 

The core theme of this coming year will be volunteers - who will increasingly become the backbone of all of our work.  Volunteer coaches will support the local WIMPS Crew, Away from Violence and Breaking the Cycle teams.  We will also train coaches from amongst the fire services north and south of the border.  This will create a broad network of locally based volunteers, recruited, trained and supported by Public Achievement staff.  It is vital to the sustainability of our 'civic youth work' model that volunteers should be at the forefront of our work.  It is also vital to the future of our society that as citizens, we all take responsibility for the creation and recreation of community and the building of a democratic fabric that prevents us from slipping back in the atavistic conflicts of the past,

The timing of this new emphasis in our work is fortuitous - as 2011 is also the European Year of the Volunteering and is the tenth anniversary of the 'International Year of Volunteering' - so around the world people will be focusing on the spirit of voluntarism and value that volunteers bring to our communities.  For us, volunteering is partly about service, but also about being an active citizen - contributing to community and society and building a more democratic and inclusive society.  In straightened financial times it is more vital than ever that we pay attention to what is happening within and between our communities.  I remain unconvinced by what motivates David Cameron's 'Big Society' ideal, but I know that communities with vibrant volunteerism are much healthier than those without.  There has now been more than two decades of research about the value of 'social capital' to our communities - and we know in Northern Ireland the importance of bridge builders - who can create links between our still fractured communities, across our sectarian, cultural and economic divides. 

2011 will also - I suspect - be a year of major challenge for the Northern Ireland Executive.  Though the first half of the year will be largely lost to the electioneering in the run-up to May's elections, immediately afterwards, they will have to deal with a series of very serious issues and economic choices - unprecedented in the short life-span of the Northern Ireland Assembly.  Again, I would argue, this political experiment has much greater chances of succeeding in an atmosphere where politicians and citizens work together than one in which citizens are treated merely as consumers - or worse - only attended to in order to secure valuable votes.

As you will see in our staff section - our team has been growing at a terrific rate!  We have a fabulous team and although we said goodbye to some great staff members in 2010, we have the largest and strongest team in our history.  Indeed most of our former staff members are now working with us as volunteers - either on our Board or as local coaches!

If you've been thinking about volunteering - come and talk to us - we have some very exciting opportunities and training for volunteers this year, whether your interest is road safety, media and politics, or working with young people in their communities.  Have a great 2011 - and come and spend some of it with us. 

What a year 2009 was!  Well settled in our new offices, we saw a year of frenetic activity, some staff changes, and some solid steps toward making Public Achievement a more sustainable organisation and model.  It seems that the reputation of our work grows steadily, and we have had a host of new partnerships develop with a wide range of groups, communities and agencies.

The early part of the year saw a lot of consolidation of the work of the previous year, and in particular the publication of our coach manual and international resource, both of which were launched at QUB on 27 April as part of 'Community Relations Week' (both available for download).  Our Action Research Officer - Laura McFall - moved on to take up a new post with the Children's Commissioner - though she retains a strong interest in our work, and we have plans for some work together this year.

Deborah (Debs) Irwin replaced Laura in the new role of "Youth Work Manager", and we also saw a turnover in the Civic Educator team who run the Away from Violence project.  This project and its sister - 'Breaking the Cycle' project have seen significant progress over the year, and the fruits of much of this work will be seen early in 2010.  There is clearly a strong legacy of violence in many of our communities across Northern Ireland and it has a debilitating impact on the lives of young people living in tough social realities.

In June we finally took delivery of the wonderful 'WIMPSmobile' - our mobile unit that allows us to make films with young people in their communities anywhere in Northern Ireland.  This has given the project greater reach and visibility - and as well as the vehicle we have a stack of new computer and video equipment and software that allows us to bring a high specification service to any group.  We're even experimenting with a new form of mobile broadband - called iBurst - in the Belfast area.

The summer was far from quiet - and started with a film presentation to the Northern Ireland Policing Board as part of their ongoing enquiry into young people, policing and human rights.  We interviewed many of the young people we work with about their experiences and views of policing.  This has led directly to a larger scale project which will report soon - carried out through our new trading arm, 'Achieve Enterprises' - in which we will interview more than 200 young people from tough realities about their ideas and experiences.  We are also collaborating with the Institute for Conflict Research on a research strand to the project which updates earlier research they did on young people and policing.  For me, whilst there have been enormous advances in policing since the implementation of the Patten Commission report of 1999, the relationship between young people and the police remains a key issue which should and must be addressed - but which could also contribute significantly to overall improvements in policing, in the civic life of communities and in the life experiences of many young people.

August saw our first 'Away from Violence' summer youth camp at Corrymeela.  For many of the young people involved, this was their first experience of cross-community engagement, and it had a profound impact on the groups - who organised their own visits to each other's communities following the residential.  The 'Civic Youth Work' methodology creates a shared vocabulary for the young people involved in the project - and normalises the handling of difficult and controversial issues.

In September, we had a delegation of volunteer youth workers visit from the Lebanese Organisation for Studies and Training (LOST).  This group from the Bakaar Valley were highly motivated trainees and in addition to doing accredited training, they visited several of our groups as well as the north coast and Derry.  September also saw the start of some work on community relations with the 'Sliabh Beagh Partnership' in rural Fermanagh/Tyrone/Monaghan.  We are doing two projects - one with teenagers from the area who are making a film together, and the other with adults working with local community organisations.

The year ended at the same pace that it began.  We started a new project on coach training with former combatants - people who want to change their leadership role and relationship with young people in their communities.  We started work on a new project for the Northern Ireland Youth Forum looking at young people's political heritage.  A project we have been working on developing for several years with the Fire Services in Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic - 'Driving Change' - was finally awarded funded by the EU.  A team of two staff and two young people headed off to South Africa to take part in Bush Radio's 'Media Kidocracy Konference' and to build stronger partnerships between our Away from Violence project and theirs.  If you haven't read it, you should check out their blog from the visit.  We also launched the new WIMPS 'Peace Channel' - the first thematic channel on the site - with four films created by groups living in interfaces in north and west Belfast.

There were also a couple of awards at the end of the year.  Four girls from the 'WIMPS Crew' won a UK wide competition to join the Attorney General's youth network.  Baroness Scotland visited their school with the Justice Minister, Paul Goggins - and then the girls travelled to London to meet the Attorney General and the other young people involved in the network at the House of Lords.

Public Achievement was given an award from the political blogsite, Slugger O'Toole.  The award was for participation and involvement, and we were nominated by a politician - Basil McCrea MLA.  The WIMPS team worked at the awards, and interviewed more than 50 MLAs, journalists and others in the run-up to the second annual awards.  This was a great way to finish the year off!

So what of 2010?

The year will not be without its challenges - the funding environment for charities in Northern Ireland is bleak in the face of the scaling down of the EU Peace Programme and the spend-down of initiatives such a the International Fund for Ireland and the giant Atlantic Philanthropies.  We should expect major cuts in government funding - particularly post general election - and a continued absence of strategy from the Executive particularly in areas such as community relations.  Even where there is policy - such as the 10 Year Strategy for Children and Young People - the policy is made limp by the lack of detail and the lack of dedicated funding strands to follow it.

Yet looking forward, I feel both positive and optimistic.  Public Achievement is currently generating almost one third of its income - and we should be able to build on this (fairly recent) success over the coming year.  We also need to invest in the building and managing of a donor base - so if your New Year's resolutions include doing more for charity - we'd love to hear from you!  It is vital that we secure more grant funding in the short-term - particularly to support WIMPS, our training activities in communities, and before the end of 2010 to extend our vital 'Away from Violence' project.

Technically our 10th anniversary passed quietly a couple of months back.  Public Achievement became a registered company at the end of 1999.  However 2000 saw the first full year of activity - and after a pilot phase, the organisation became more fully structured in 2003.  So we will use 2010 to celebrate a decade of activity.  There will be a series of key events, including a launch of our policing film and research; the launch and tour of an exhibition created by young people in four communities through the 'Away from Violence' project, and a 'Participation Summit' involving young people from across Northern Ireland in the summer.

We intend to re-design the WIMPS website - creating a new interface with users that takes advantage of the latest in social networking and mobile technologies.  We also intend to start internationalising WIMPS and creating multi-lingual content.  We are expecting a major announcement on the creation of a Northern Ireland Youth Assembly within weeks (something we have campaigned on for more than two years), and we will continue to campaign on other key issues affecting young people through the site (including lowering the voting age, and creating a shared society).

Having successfully piloted the 'Away from Violence' and 'Breaking the Cycle' projects, we need to embed the learning from these projects into more communities through partnership with local groups and agencies.  We also need to more strongly evidence the benefits of this work - and the young people's exhibitions will be an important start to this process.  The legacy of four decades of political violence has left a deep impact on individuals, families and communities.  Combined with poverty and the deep segregation of our society it serves to compound the multiple problems faced by young people living in tough social realities.  Yet Northern Ireland is still better placed than anywhere else on the planet to successfully and substantially address these issues - and to change the outcomes for future generations of young people.

The Driving Change project will see the first major collaboration between Public Achievement and a public body.  The project is focussed on road safety in cross-border communities, and we will be training volunteers within the fire service and local communities to work with young drivers and their peers on projects that seek to change the driving habits of young people in the 17 - 25 age group - particularly young men.  This is a significant opportunity to mainstream our 'Civic Youth Work' model into the culture and practice of a public organisation.



Our work on policing and on training with former combatants will develop through the year - I hope into more significant ongoing initiatives.  These are two key areas where Public Achievement has a significant contribution to make.

A major disappointment in 2009 was the decision of SEUPB not to support a significant international project - 'Moving Away from Violence'.  Starting this month, we will begin planning to deliver this project in a different format, building on the success of our previous 'Youth Work in Contested Spaces' projects and our strong international networks with youth workers in conflict regions around the world.  By the end of the year I hope we will have in place a strong strategy to move this work forward with accompanying resources and partnerships.

Change - in my view - is about taking risks, about letting go of things we thought were important, and trying to remain true to our core vision in spite of what life throws at us.  This is as true in the business world as it is in the world of ‘the third sector’ – or even politics.  The enduring ideas are those built on vision and belief in something important – in our case, the ability of human beings to solve their own problems given the right environment and support.

Unfortunately there is not much evidence of this spirit in the public sector at the moment, nor in Political life (big ‘P’) in Northern Ireland.  In the public sector we have delay after delay in the implementation of important changes, such as the establishment of the ‘Education and Skills Authority’ and the wider implementation of the ‘Review of Public Administration’.  Progress on both these fronts is very much tied to the political stalemate at Stormont – where it seems impossible to take decisions on important issues that will move our society forward.  The continued absence of a policy to replace the former ‘A Shared Future’ framework is a case in point. 

Seeing Peace Walls Through Young Eyes

In the midst of all this chaos and frustration, some important things are happening around our work with young people.  Two recent events, both held on 9 November, illustrate this well.

The ‘Up Against the Walls’ event on that date was the culmination of more than a year of activity by youth workers, volunteers, and young people looking at the impact of Belfast’s 88 so-called ‘Peace Walls’ on the lives of the young people living next to them.  The process was the brain-child of consultant Tony Macauley who grew up close to where I did on the Woodvale Road in north-west Belfast.  The event was held to mark the 20^th anniversary of the greatest dividing wall in Europe – the Berlin Wall – coming down due to ‘people-power’.  Young people gathered at the longest wall – in west Belfast to play drums, shoot hoops, and talk to leading citizens including our current Lord Mayor, and Children’s Commissioner.

Later that same day we launched the ‘WIMPS Peace Channel’ at the Crumlin Road Gaol.  This was the culmination of a project that saw four groups of young people living either side of two interfaces make films about the impact of the walls on their lives.  The Lord Mayor, Naomi Long (accompanied by Frank Macoubrie the city’s High Sherriff) formally launched the project and praised the young people for their work and commitment.  Her motto for her year in office is ‘Belfast Without Barriers’.

One thing that struck me about the work is that we were able to do so much with a small grant.  We were given access to the venue free of charge, and the funding we already had from the International Fund for Ireland, meant that we were able to apply staff to the project, as did the local agencies on the ground.  The result was young people having conversations they hadn’t had before, and meeting people they wouldn’t normally meet – both in terms of their neighbours on the ‘other side’, but also having the chance to meet the Mayor, the High Sherriff and a range of policy makers and practitioners.  You could really see the pride in their faces as they watched their films and the reactions of others to these films.

Losing Trust?

All of this was brought into sharp relief by another recent experience – the conclusion of more than a year of discussions, submissions and debates with the European Programmes Body following our submission of an application to the Peace III programme for funding to support our international work with colleagues from conflict regions around the world.  To cut a very long story short, the application was unsuccessful – in spite of being short-listed for an economic appraisal.  I have rarely felt so mistrusted as I did during this arduous process.  In the end we were told that we would have had more success had our project sought 100% funding (we were looking for half the funding, levering in the rest through other grants and fundraising), and had we not focused so much on our international colleagues – in spite of the strand looking at Northern Ireland as an ‘outward and forward looking region’.

An enormous amount of time and resources were wasted in the almost 18 months that it took to get a decision.  Not just the time of Public Achievement staff, but also the cost of an economic appraisal which took several weeks - to justify a decision that appeared to have already been taken.

In my view, bureaucracy is destroying trust, stifling good work and killing creativity.  The fixation with audit (at the cost of just about everything else) is creeping into other public funding mechanisms, and even the funding mechanisms of other bodies with public sector involvement - such as the International Fund for Ireland. 

I am all for accountability – it is vitally important and part of our active citizenship model when we work with young people and their communities.  However I am opposed to wasteful fixation on bureaucracy and audit at the expense of trust, and common sense.  For example, we have frequently experienced situations where funders reject changes to projects based on reflective practice because it was not what we signed up to – maybe two or three years previously when funding was agreed.

It would be helpful for those involved in these administrations to look at concepts of social capital, how it is created and destroyed.  Social capital is built on trust, reciprocity and community spirit.  I would argue that this way of funding destroys trust, is driven by top-down concerns, and is therefore not likely to assist in building community.  Many of the areas where millions have been spent are no further on in terms of community spirit and infrastructure – and it is my belief that these communities will not develop until there is a genuine sense of partnership between funders and the funded – real trust, and a shared vision of the future.  Can we build peace on any other foundations?

In the meantime, organisations like Public Achievement and our local partners must continue to illustrate that there are better ways of investing funds – public or otherwise – that help us to build more democratic communities together.

In the past couple of months, I have had the growing feeling that after several years of struggle, Public Achievement's work is becoming increasingly recognised as relevant, important and innovative.  If you've received our latest eZine then you will know that we have a series of new projects, new funders and have several new members of our staff team.

At a time of wholesale panic in the voluntary sector, and just about everywhere else in the face of economic meltdown around the world and huge structural changes at home, I am getting a perverse sense of satisfaction from knowing that just about every other organisation is going through the kind of survival struggles we have been engaged in for years now!  More than this though, something else appears to be happening - the issues we've been banging on about for years, seem to be surfacing for others on a number of fronts.

One example is that we've been talking about the 'bogus' nature of much that masquerades as 'youth participation'.  Since the setting up of the first Executive, there has been a culture I refer to as the 'anesthetic of consultation' - where every government body and Quango has been seeking to get the views of 'citizens' on every sliver of policy.  One of the boxes on the tick-list is young people - so organisations contact groups like PA - and we try to get young people to feed-back on the policies.  That is pretty much where it stops - no feedback for the young people - whether or not their ideas have been taken on board.  Sometimes their might be a photocall with a Minister - but then again, no serious engagement with the young people about the issues they raised.

This seems to have shifted recently.  Firstly we did a bit of work for the Policing Board - making a short film about young people's experiences of policing and human rights.  We presented it at a meeting of the Policing Board's Human Rights and Community Engagement Committees on 10 June - and they really engaged with the material and with Bronagh from WIMPS who had been actively involved in the film and was part of our presentation team.  They want to engage with us, and with other organisations working on young people and policing - and my impression is that they are very serious about this.

We've had a range of conversations with other public bodies, government departments and other agencies about the same kinds of issues, and their appears to be a growing realisation that participation means more than setting up a committee for young people, or consulting with young people about narrow adult driven agendas.  There have also been some impressive moves at the Assembly, where it now seems highly likely a youth structure (probably called the 'Youth Assembly') will be set up within months.  There does appear to be a commitment to going beyond the existing models around the UK and Ireland to develop something that reflects the needs and political realities facing young people in Northern Ireland, and that genuinely seeks to engage wide groups of young people in the full raft of issues the Assembly has responsibility for.  With a bit of work it might even be possible to get the Assembly to vote in favour of reducing the voting age to 16 (though I suspect only Westminster has the power to put the necessary legislation in place).

In his fascinating report 'Remixing Citizenship', Professor Stephen Coleman asserted that the problem our society faces is not that young people have disengaged from politics, but rather that politics has disengaged from young people.  The recent series of expenses scandals and the public reaction to them seem to reinforce the idea that politics may well have disengaged from an even larger section of our society.  I see this more as an opportunity for the reinvention of politics than any great crisis for democracy itself.

WIMPS - social networking technology and politics

With the WIMPS (Where Is My Public Servant?) project, we have noted significant awareness of the site amongst politicians and their staff - particularly at Assembly level and beyond.  In one week a few months back, we were approached by an MLA, Executive Minister and a Member of the European Parliament (these are three different people in case you are wondering!) about when we were going to interview them!  This is a refreshing change from the days when it was a real challenge to get interviews with politicians.  If you follow the site (and you should!) you will have noticed that the young people in the 'WIMPS Crew' are becoming more and more accomplished in the conducting of their interviews - which they also research and have started to edit.

Another change we noticed just after the Obama victory was that local politicians, almost en masse, seemed to set up their own Facebook pages.  Not all of them make much use of them or seem to get what the tool is about - but some are very adept at using new technologies.  I was able to contact then Junior Minister Jeffrey Donaldson through Facebook to set up a meeting about help we needed with a project - I got a response within minutes and a meeting within a week - impressive stuff!  WIMPS is a great tool in this regard - it pushes all the adults (myself included!) who might normally get into the middle of an interaction between politicians and young citizens out of the way, and allows for direct and honest engagement.  I believe this process is very healthy both for young people and for the politicians.  I am conscious that this kind of interaction happens in very few places in the world, and that we have opportunities now that we need to 'normalise' as habits for the future.

Violence - it hasn't gone away you know!

Public Achievement remains focused on the ways in which violence continues to limit the outcomes and opportunities for young people from tougher social realities.  Young people who are frightened to leave their communities because they live on an 'interface', or who are frightened within their communities because of a culture of paramilitarism and violent criminality are less likely to feel able to leave those areas to seek education, training or employment.  Most depressing of all, many forms of violence are 'normalised' in young people's lives - and they are sometimes things they take for granted should not be accepted.  We are also increasingly aware of the pernicious influence of so-called 'dissident republican' groups - who appear to be preying on the most vulnerable young people in disadvantaged areas.  Most of those arrested for activities relating to these groups have been teenagers - who have no living memory of the former political conflict.  During our ongoing work on young people and policing, we have also become aware that there are many 'gatekeepers' still operating within communities, who want to stop or stifle all constructive discussion on this important issue.  Even though the experiences of policing amongst the young people we have interviewed were overwhelmingly negative - all but a very small number were keen on the idea of engaging further on the issue - including directly with the police and policing structures.  It appears many adults still have to bite the bullet (sorry appalling pun!) on this issue, and to put their own biographical hang-ups behind them so we can all move forward.  Don't get me wrong - I am not suggesting that policing here is perfect - far from it - but we now have unparalleled opportunities to shape policing and to hold it accountable - and there is a need to stop winging and clinging to prejudice.

Please comment, engage, criticise - this site is a space for open and honest dialogue, in the spirit of building democratic communities together!

This is 'Community Relations Week' and Public Achievement marked the start of the week with the launch of two of our new resources - our handbook for coaches and our international resource for training youth workers in contested societies.  The event was hosted at Queens University by PA Chairperson, Professor Tony Gallagher.

Speaking at the event Tony said, “One of the challenges of contested societies is trying to get people to see themselves as architects of the future –these resources can help support work with young people that gives them the opportunity create a different future”.

Another Board member, Michele Marken, OBE, who many of you will know as the recently retired Principal of St Joseph's College, said “The niche work of Public Achievement is about offering a building block for the society of the future - the resources are worth their weight in gold in terms of supporting work with young people that develops their skills and knowledge and challenges their attitudes”.

Caoimhe and Darryn spoke about their roles as Civic Educators on the 'Breaking the Cycle' and 'Away from Violence' projects, and we were also honoured by an input from Tony McCusker, Chair of the Community Relations Council and Youthnet.  Tony commended the work of Public Achievement and said, “Young People are the future and Public Achievement has made a significant contribution to ensure that the future they face is totally different to the one we had”.

The week happens against a difficult background - with a rise in 'dissident Republican' activity across Northern Ireland on the one hand, and a policy vacuum on the other where the Executive has been unable to agree an alternative to the 'A Shared Future' policy brought forward by the former Direct Rule administration.  For us at Public Achievement and for many other organisations running community relations programmes with young people, this situation is further compounded by the current position of the Department of Education.  The Minister has initiated a review of their community relations policy, and this means that their funding for this work is currently only funded to August.  In the interim rumours abound about the Minister's apparent desire to do away with community relations in favour of an equality agenda.  The rumours are not unfounded, as Ruane and others in Sinn Fein are on record on this issue.

All this is not to say that PA wouldn't also benefit from an Equality policy - and we'd also like to see the Minister support cross-border and international youth work activity - but the current vacuum creates a lot of uncertainty about the future, and the funding we currently receive (which has gone down in real terms in each of the past 3 years) is vital to our overall sustainability.

The Department talks about the importance of long-term thinking and planning, of evaluation and professional standards - but the constant uncertainty and short-termism around funding policy and practice makes it extremely difficult for organisations to live up to these expectations.

Of course another vital issue is that - to paraphrase the Sinn Fein President - the problem of community relations - 'hasn't gone away you know!'.  In particular the violent radicalisation of young people by dissident Republican groups, is evidence - were it needed - that a new generation is being infected by the scourge of sectarianism.  Our recent work for the Department has shown that young people are very concerned about these issues, about the continued segregation of our communities and our education system - and keen to engage with people from other communities and cultures.  A shift in policy at this point is not only dangerous to the future of voluntary organisations, it may also prove to be fairly disasterous in terms of our collective future.