St Columb's Park House.

‘St Columb’s Park House Reconciliation and Conference Centre’ is a renovated manor house that was established as a neutral, safe venue.  A variety of programmes are run as part of its role as a centre for peacebuilding and social includion.  The centre concentrates primarily on work with young people, and also in commissioning research for community groups. It focuses on building effective partnerships, and is a key institution in the wider community for collaborative reconciliation and civic participation.

Political Youth Wings

The programme is based around conference-style events that include study visits, group work, and contributions from academics, practitioners and community activists. The programme has encouraged the development of an inter-regional network of young party activists who retain contact between events. They are able to engage in direct political dialogue, and they are comfortable with each other socially.

Foyle Youth Bank Programme

This programme involves a cross-community grant-making committee of young people distributing funding to local youth-led projects.

ASB Programme

The ASB Programme is an evolution of the Interact programme and seeks to explore the relationship between sectarianism and anti-social behaviour.

Play for Change Project

This project has been developed by an interagency partnership including Derry Children’s Commission, Derry City Council, NWIFHE and Liberty Consortium and is grounded in the Interagency Play Policy and Strategy for the Derry City Council area. It is a flagship project for the Derry City Council area and involves the creation and programming of an innovative ‘shared space’ building reconciliation through play. As well as developing a unique adventure play area within the grounds of St Columbs Park, the project provides training for young people in playwork.

Negotiating Change

The ‘Negotiating Change’ project was developed in response to research commissioned by SCPH that investigated the extent and causes of Protestant alienation within Derry/Londonderry. The project is comprised of a number of initiatives, including:

Cultural Heritage and Identity Programme

Several meetings have been held to address the issue of symbols and flags in the city and how they impact on community relations.

London-Derry Connections

In collaboration with other community relation’s practitioners from across the city, we are working with stakeholders on building compromise and consensus around the name of the city and extending social, cultural, economic and sporting links between the two cities.

Ex-combatants capacity building programme

This initiative works with the ex-loyalist combatant umbrella group to help build their capacity and re-integrate them into mainstream community relations work.

Anchor Programme

This pilot programme was a 12 week single identity programme aimed at developing non-academic and confidence building skills amongst participants.

Wider Horizons Programme

This is a 20 week cross-community employability programme for young people that concludes with a 8 week exchange to Montreal, Canada.

Forum for Cities in Transition

This is a network of cities from across the world to share programmes and models of best practice.

Gateway to Protestant Participation

Londonderry YMCA are the lead partner in this programme, which has included discussion forums and networking events.