The Monthly discusses the Limestone United Cross Community Project with Brian Caskey – Part 2 – Working with the poet, Tifara Brown?

How does the project develop from the starting point you outlined in Part 1 of this interview?

We had worked with a Peace-Building organisation, Byron Bland, who had worked in Northern Ireland. I had done a bit of work with them on Community Safety and Policing, There was a Pastor over in America and he had mentored a poet called, Tifara Brown, through her difficult years. She lived in North Carolina and she experienced a high level of racism when she was growing up. She turned to poetry as a form of social activism to express her hope for the future. As soon as we heard from her we knew we wanted to work with her.

We connected Tifara to the group of girls, and the lads, and they got on a couple of ZOOM calls with her and she told them her story. It was clear that she connected very quickly with the young people and from there each group used poetry to tell their story.

How did the young people work with Tifara?

The young girls worked on a Belfast Peace Poem about their experiences, and the young lads also worked on a poem with Tifara. The young people were talking about their history, about their challenges, this was in terms of where they live and their lives more generally.

How was the writing workshop organised?

One of the most difficult things to begin with was getting the information from the young people, particularly the boys, but Tifara was very professional and she found a process where information was given over. Tifara would have a number of sessions with the group of girls for example. They would feed to her their thoughts and their ideas, and she would guide them through the process of turning those thoughts and ideas into a poem.

Then, when there was a shell of a poem had been created, that would be fired back to the young people to look over and give their opinions on. I don’t think we had anyone in our team who could have done that, and again I can say that after this experience we are looking at using this approach moving forward.