Reprinted from The Journal News, Tuesday, March 23, 1999

Who We Are – NICE

        Imagine your daughter returns home from summer camp, full of stories about her new best friend who has been her roommate for five weeks, and you have to tell her it is just too dangerous for her to continue her new friendship. That was the sort of situation Don Murphy had seen for ten years in the families of Northern Ireland, and he decided to do something about it.

        In the mid-1970's, during the height of “The Troubles” in Northern Ireland, many American community groups decided the best way to help was to remove the children from the dangerous city streets for a few weeks in the summer, and give them a vacation from a segregated and violent society. Many people find it difficult to understand such segregation and prejudice when all the participants look and sound the same. In Belfast, neighborhoods are either Catholic or Protestant. Divisions are enforced by “peace walls” that separate neighborhoods, brick structures twelve feet high and four feet thick. The answer to where do you live, what school do you attend, or where does your father work, immediately identifies the community to which you belong. Most children have never met anyone from the other side of the conflict. During a summer holiday with American families, these children learned about diversity. They made friends with the children of the other side of the conflict in their homeland, and they learned how similar they are. But when they returned home, the friendships died.

        The Murphys had served as host family and volunteer coordinators since 1978. In 1989, Don decided to form Northern Ireland Children's Enterprise to give these children a chance to continue their friendships. He purchased a house in Ballycastle, a beautiful seaside town on the Antrim coast about an hour's trip from Belfast. Here children who had shared a common experience in the United States were able to maintain a dialogue that could not happen in the segregated streets of Belfast. The house provides a meeting place where children and their families can join together in a secure environment, and continue to build mutual understanding, friendship, and respect. The children can enjoy each other during a busy, fun-filled weekend complete with varied activities, sports, field trips, and arts and crafts. There are discussion groups as well which focus on ways to improve relationships between the communities.

Kate Cunningham with some of the children outside the NICE center in Ballycastle, County Antrim, Northern Ireland

        In January, 1998 a second facility was purchased in a neutral area of Belfast, which serves as NICE headquarters in Northern Ireland. This facility, presently being renovated, will house an after-school program and community center throughout the week, and a meeting place for the parents of the children involved in the program. What began as a summer program in the U.S. and expanded to a weekend program in Ballycastle has now become a seven-day per week enterprise.

        For the first ten years of the program, management and general expenses were kept to a minimum, as Don Murphy supported the program since its inception using office space and clerical support from his business firm, DJ Murphy Associates. In September, 1998 NICE opened its US headquarters in Mount Kisco. This office coordinates fundraising efforts, public relations, and the summer holiday program. Most fund-raising in the US is done through golf outings; five outings will be held this year. The Eleventh Annual Mount Kisco Golf Outing will be held on Thursday, June 10. The other outings are held in Mahopac, Boston, Philadelphia and Naples, Fla.

        Today there is great hope for Northern Ireland since the Good Friday agreement was ratified last spring. Yet that promise of peace was broken this summer by the bombing in Omagh and the murder of the three young Quinn brothers. There is a whole generation who has known nothing but violence and conflict, in a land that has a history of strife for eight hundred years. Programs such as NICE become even more essential in light of the peace process. Today there is hope that the dialogue which begins at NICE facilities will continue in Belfast homes, and last into the future.

The writer is a consultant with NICE.