Peacemaker

Peacemaker's mission could fit in with the whole of Barrow Cadbury Trust’s Habits of Solidarity funding criteria even though only one of its project is funded by the charity. Peacemaker was created by a group of young British Asians in 1997 who saw their hometown Oldham becoming increasingly segregated and prejudiced. This disturbing trend was mirrored in other northern mill towns such as Burnley and Bradford and exploded into riots in the summer of 2001. As its name suggests, Peacemaker came into existence to ease tensions and promote understanding between divided groups.

Erin Hoekstra, delivery and training manager at Peacemaker, says the 2001 disturbances raised the profile of the group’s work, which led to involvement with the Ted Cantle report about the disturbances in Oldham, Burnley and Bradford commissioned by the then home secretary, David Blunkett. She says: “As the need for the work that we were doing anyway was starting to be recognised by other people, it enabled us to access more funding. Peacemaker grew into a larger organization and, we became a registered charity. We were able to hire more staff and expand our work.”

Erin says the project works by filling what it perceives to be gaps in provision left by government. The group runs a number of projects and programmes that promote the understanding of different faiths and value systems in primary and secondary schools.

The Peer Education programme is funded with £15,000 from the Barrow Cadbury Trust’s Habits of Solidarity pot. The programme aims to support the integration of young people from seven secondary schools in the area, which are in the process of amalgamating into three city academies.

The Government says its city academy programme raises “standards in the most disadvantaged and challenging areas”. Most academies are meant to replace weak or underperforming schools. But Raja Miah, director of Peacemaker, says pupils from mono-cultural schools are being put into mixed academies with little thought of the consequences. In Oldham, three schools are about to be merged into one Academy. Peacemaker is currently working with the children from the different schools to aid integration when the schools merge.

Miah says children in these schools often do not mix and it has led to tensions between different ethnic groups. “[In academies] you’ve got the poorest black kids, the poorest white kids and the poorest Asian kids – it’s not the most positive recipe for educational achievement. Within the academies themselves, mixing is not being encouraged,” says Miah.

This is the problem Peacemaker’s Peer Education programme seeks to address. The project trains young people over nine months to be mentors, they then they go into schools and build up relationships with pupils.

The programme helps to bring together marginalised young people from one community with young adults (mentors) from a different community. Young people are supported by mentors from different communities and for many it is the first time in their lives that they are developing positive relationships with people from different backgrounds.

Whilst more general mentoring takes place, Peacemaker says prejudices are also overcome, as both the mentors and pupils share similar life experiences, challenges, and solutions to difficulties.

The problems Peacemaker is dealing with in city academies are not something Miah says, any evaluation by the Government has ever addressed. “There seems to be a disconnection between the policy and what is actually happening,” he says. “At least if the Government is attempting to do this [bring people from different backgrounds together] there should be certain strategies in place that helps make the best out of a potentially bad situation – that's what Peacemaker's Peer Education programme is doing.”