Program brings Irish, African-American teens together
Youths from Belfast visit the Hill District
As a Catholic growing up amid the religious-based segregation of Belfast in Northern Ireland, Conor Largey said he had no experience with the wider world.
“All we knew were the eight blocks or the 12 blocks we lived in,” he said. “All we know is what we’ve seen.”
But at age 15, he took part in a program that helped him, both at home and through an exchange program to the United States, to learn how to relate to people different from himself and to envision a more ambitious future. “It motivated me to go to university,” he said. “I thought that was off the table.”
He spoke Thursday afternoon outside the Jeron X. Grayson Community Center in the Hill District, where Mr. Largey, now 21, was among the supervisors of a new group of Belfast teens who are taking part in another such exchange program with youths at the center.
They were playing a teamwork-building game involving a football and a lot of sprinting, and later several were jumping rope and trying out a portable climbing wall.
Then they gathered for lunch indoors, followed by a slideshow of the first part of their exchange earlier this summer— a group of
Pittsburgh teens and adults who went to Northern Ireland.
Taking part in that trip were young people and adults affiliated with programs at the Grayson Center. On each part of the trip, the groups learned from each other about shared challenges as minorities in urban environments, trading stories about dealing with crime, barriers to education and discrimination from employers and police.
For the Irish youths, who come from Catholic neighborhoods in Belfast with its long history of Protestant-Catholic conflict, the divisions are sectarian, while the issues are racial for African-Americans coming from the United States.
The challenges are “all about power, oppression and discrimination, but what we can do is compare and contrast the lived experiences of these communities.” said Stephen Hughes, leader in charge of the St. Peter’s Immaculata Youth Centre, a faith-based social-service center in Belfast that brought the youths here. The program aims to help those at risk of falling into crime or self-harming-behavior.
“Although their issues here are race-based and our issues are sectarian, the idea that our young people get exposed coming here, meeting people of different faiths, is so very important in challenging that stereotype,” he said.
Some of the relationshipbuilding in Northern Ireland took place over fun activities — such as swimming at a beach by the frigid North Atlantic or going to an amusement park. Others were more poignant, such as visiting the walls that separate Protestant and Catholic neighborhoods. Many walls are covered by art, often with calls for peace.
The American youths added their own contributions to one such wall. “All of us signed it and put a good, positive note,” said Terrell Coleman, 14, part of the Grayson Center group.
Terrance Mattox, 14, enjoyed both the traditional Irish food, such as fish and chips, and what’s become standard dinner fare there due to South Asian immigration — curry.
“When I first went there, I thought it was all peaceful,” he added. “I thought our violence was bad,” but learned that Belfast had its own problems with violence.
Both groups experience “lack of employability, police harassment,” said Matthew Magee, 17, of the Belfast group. “It comes as a surprise, even though we’re from far away, it’s exactly the same.”
The Rev. Glenn Grayson, executive director of Center that CARES, which oversees programs at several sites including at the Jeron X. Grayson Center, said this was the first foreign trip for many of the youths. It was for many their first time getting a passport and flying on a plane.
The trip combined dialogues with their peers with visits to sites like Giant’s Causeway, a coastal landmark known for its spectacular geologic features, and with dignitaries such as Belfast’s lord mayor.
Similarly, the Irish contingent’s itinerary here included a visit with Mayor Bill Peduto and a trip to Kennywood.
The Irish youths toured the Hill District and learned its history as the hub of Pittsburgh’s African-American community and the center of its activism.
The exchange programs are coordinated by Lawrenceville-based Amizade, which provides what it calls fair-trade learning programs for young people in numerous countries. Previous contingents from Northern Ireland have come to Pittsburgh and other American communities in past years.
The center is named for Rev. Grayson’s son, Jeron, who was killed at age 18 as a bystander in a 2010 shooting. It’s dedicated to being a safe place and providing youths skills as alternatives to violence.
Youths with the Grayson Center previously went on similar exchanges to Ghana and Jamaica, where they did service projects.
The main product of this trip was “relationships,” said Rev. Grayson, who is also pastor of Wesley Center AME Zion Church. “That’s so powerful. It feels genuine.”