Deborah Given - Northern Ireland
Change Through Education
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I think it did, yes, because really I felt when you have lived through that -- that, you know, what can you do to try and heal the society, what can you do to try and build trust amongst people. And I think with integrated education, which was started by a group of parents, the first school was Lagan College, which I’m sure you’ve heard of, in 1981. And that was the first school and that was really a group of parents who got together, Catholic and Protestant parents at the height of the Troubles and said, "Look, you know, if we want to build a stable future here, we’ve got to bring the children together so that they can learn to understand and respect each other’s background and culture." But the thing about the integrated schools was it wasn’t just the children, it was the parents’ meeting at the school gates for the first time, the teachers were both Catholic and Protestant and the board of governors were Catholic and Protestant.
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