News & Events
Students from Stranmillis, St. Mary’s and David Yellin Colleges with staff of the Al-Isawiya schools in East Jerusalem
Clockwise from top left: Northern Ireland students with pupils of Al-Isawiya Girls’ School; the NI group on the steps of David Yellin College, Jerusalem; students in DMU-style encounter session
It could be described as a double-DMU activity! Students from Stranmillis and St. Mary’s University Colleges recently took part in a DMU-supported exchange programme with students from a ‘mixed’ teacher education college in Jerusalem who were themselves exploring their own diversity and seeking better mutual understanding.
In March ten students from the David Yellin College travelled with two lecturers to Belfast as the first part of the exchange. The group of Jewish, Muslim and Christian students met with their local counterparts and engaged in a series of encounter activities, school visits, sightseeing and cultural events. Their visits included the Belfast Synagogue and the Belfast Islamic Centre and also formed part of the International Week based at St. Mary’s. Good relationships were established in anticipation of the next part of the exchange.
Just after Easter the Stranmillis/St. Mary’s group of five students from each college, together with three members of staff, set off for Jerusalem on the second stage of the exchange. Jerusalem is a place where cultures and religions meet, where traditions, identities and politics often combine in a volatile manner, impacting both locally and globally. Sightseeing and meeting local people in Jerusalem vividly highlights all of these issues: a divided city; the presence of the military; a long, high wall separating Jewish and Palestinian communities; largely separate schools; strikingly beautiful, though often highly divisive, places of religious devotion – yet also many evidences of communities trying, with varied success, to find ways of co-existing, even living together. David Yellin College, untypically, trains teachers from both main communities – Jewish and Arab (the latter including a minority of Christians alongside a Muslim majority). These contrasts could hardly be lost on a diverse group travelling from post-conflict Northern Ireland.
The Jerusalem programme, arranged by the lecturers from David Yellin College, continued the opportunities for encounter and exploration of identities and potentially conflicting community relationships. There were visits to several schools, some of which are strongly focused on developing ways of educating the communities together, and meetings with teachers and others who are committed to peacemaking work. This led to significant discussion about the role of education and community relations in both Israel/Palestine and Northern Ireland. Other visits included several iconic places, all with their many layers of religious, cultural and political significance – the various “quarters” of the stunning Old City; Bethlehem and the Church of the Nativity; the Yad Vashem Holocaust Museum; the mainly Arab East Jerusalem which is so noticeably poorer than the rest of the city; the Western (“Wailing”) Wall, so powerful for religious Jews yet with two highly significant Muslim buildings (the Dome of the Rock and Al-Aqsa mosque) on the Temple Mount just behind the Wall. It was striking that most of the local students joined the visitors for several of these visits – the first time that the Arab students had visited Yad Vashem, and the first time that the Jewish students had visited schools in East Jerusalem.
Probably the highlight of the visit was the day spent in two schools in Al-Isawiya village in East Jerusalem where the welcome and genuine delight at our visit was quite overwhelming. Staff and pupils in the two schools had prepared displays, presentations, exhibitions, dances and movement, photographs …! Most impressively the arrival at one of the schools involved over a hundred pupils making human formation of the word “FÁILTE”!
At the farewell barbeque, hosted at the home of one of the Arab students, there was general agreement that this had been a valuable exchange and a significant learning experience for both the Jerusalem and the Northern Ireland participants. There would certainly be continued contact and many new friendships had been established. Plans were made for sharing experiences and impressions in written form and for considering how the exchange could be developed in future years.
This, however, proved to be not quite the end of the story …! (Read on about the epic, ash cloud-affected journey home in 'Jerusalem- The Long Return!')