SCHOOLS in Londonderry are among a group of 15 institutions working to promote a culture of trust and develop paths of reconciliation through education which are to receive grants totalling over £120,000 from the Integrated Education Fund (IEF).
Long Tower Primary School and St Colmcille's Primary School and Nursery Unit are two of the schools benefiting from the grant programme.
Long Tower's project Musical Pathways to Friendship will run for one year and was awarded £5,000. The school w
ill work in partnership with Fountain Primary School on the concepts of cultural understanding and mutual appreciation.
The project will enable pupils to develop their self esteem and self confidence and aims to develop and sustain mutually satisfying relationships with the children by valuing and celebrating their cultural similarities and differences.
Meanwhile, St Colmcille's' project, Claudy 'Eco Kidz', will run for two years and was awarded £7,000. The school will work in partnership with Cumber Primary Claudy to promote a culture of trust and a sense of community between the pupils.
The project aims to develop structures and relationships between both schools that will benefit the wider Claudy community.
During the programme's first years, funding from the Northern Ireland Fund for Reconciliation (NIFR) supported the development of the PACT programme, and the IEF has been supported in funding the current round of the programme, PACT IX, by the Department of Education, the Irish Department of Foreign Affairs and BT.
The allocation of the money is through the IEF's Promoting A Culture of Trust (PACT) grant programme, to date grants of over £596,000 have been awarded to158 projects involving 359 schools and organisations across Northern Ireland.
