Description (EN): Background: The Bloody Sunday Trust in Derry is proposing to establish the Conflict Transformation Project to demonstrate the successes of the ‘Derry Model’ in reducing civic strife and tension over parading and in creating a greater sense of well-being by resolving many of the critical issues relating to Bloody Sunday. Derry has addressed many of the difficult issues which remain unresolved elsewhere in Northern Ireland. Derry City Council became the first public body to embrace power-sharing in 1973. An agreement was reached on the issue of contentious parades in the city between the Apprentice Boys and the Bogside Residents in 2000. David Cameron made a statement of apology in 2010 for the deaths on Bloody Sunday following a twenty-year campaign by families and friends of those killed and injured. The Museum of Free Derry was established in 2007 as a major visitor attraction and as a model of how a community can embrace its history and tell a story which contributes to healing rather than division. The Trust has designed imaginative political and human rights interventions which have changed the nature of dialogue between communities and protagonists in the north, the rest of Ireland and in Britain since1990. However, the collapse of the NI Executive in 2017, coupled with flags and emblems issues, the ‘normal’ tensions of the July Marching Season and the endless delays in securing truth and justice for many victims and survivors, starkly demonstrate the complexity of political progress, obviating the ongoing need for creative interaction between communities and learning from successful examples of ‘bottom-up’ conflict resolution.
The Project Proposal: The project will provide support, resources and opportunities to people and organisations who wish to reflect upon the Derry model as a tool to explore how to make progress within their own situation, and will be flexible enough to allow BST to respond to opportunities as and when they arise. The four modules of the project are: Parading, Legacy & Justice, Heritage & Education, and Dialogue.
Strategic Policy Context: The project complements the EU Peace IV Building Positive Relations in that it seeks to utilise real success stories in settling parades issues, resolving many critical issues around Bloody Sunday, dealing with legacy of conflict issues by building a community-owned museum and creating respectful dialogue between divided communities. It also addresses a number of strategic objectives in the Programme for Government, especially Together: Building a United Community and is based in a designated Urban Villages area. It also corresponds well with the District Council’s Good Relations Programme, proposing to further consolidate relationships between two museums offering different perspectives on the history of Derry. The Trust is a partner in the Irish Government’s Peace and Reconciliation Fund helping secure its objectives of building better relations within and between the traditions in Northern Ireland, the North and South, and Ireland and Britain.
Options Considered: The Trust explored the following options: Working with current demand with current resources (in effect ‘do nothing’): we rejected this option on the basis that current resources are over-stretched and that the full potential of cascading the ‘Derry Model’ will be diluted or lost. Adopt only two of the four proposed modules (Parading and Legacy and Justice): the Trust is of the view that the story of MoFD and Creating Dialogue complement both Parading and Legacy and Justice.
Conflict Transformation Project (the four modules): this is the preferred and most realistic option, accepting that there will be greater interest in the Module 1 and 2.
Financials: The Trust seeks £467,156.02 over a four-year period to employ a project Director and a Project Support Officer, provide the full programme costs for participant engagement, marketing, monitoring and evaluation and running costs. We feel that the cost element of the proposal is commensurate with the quality and volume of work anticipated, requiring staff of excellent calibre, skill and experience.
Risk-Management: We have provided a full risk-management appraisal of the project. Most of the risks identified pertain to recruitment, low number of participants and reporting processes both in terms of progress and financial management. The Trust has vast experience of risk-management in relation to its projects, both capital and revenue, and has established good governance structures to guard against risk with members updating skills by attending corporate governance training on a regular basis. A key risk is failure to measure impact: in this respect the Trust will engage an expert on monitoring procedures and evaluation frameworks for the duration of the project.
Project Management: The Trust is an experienced Board with a robust management and reporting structure in place to oversee both the capital development and progress in respect of programmes. Incoming staff will provide written reports on progress and expenditure to the Board on a regular basis. The Trust will also create an Advisory Board specifically for this project.
Communication and Marketing: While we anticipate that the uptake of the project will be high, it will be necessary to create a focus and a public presence for the ‘Derry Model’ in the media and at community level. The incoming Director will be expected to be skilled in communication and marketing and be capable of creating a bespoke profile in Derry, within the north, throughout Ireland and in Britain, utilising social and mainstream media.
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