Access

In October 10 pupils from RSD travelled to Corrymeela, a community based centre in Ballycastle, along with pupils from St. Patrick's Academy Dungannon, St. Josephs Donaghmore and Cookstown High School for 2 days, with the aim to quash ‘religious’ myths, while providing the opportunity for pupils to get to know each other and mix in an open-minded community, giving them the chance to express their opinions on Northern Irish ‘ religion.’

 From team building activities, making masks, open group discussions, ghost walks around a local graveyard at midnight (inc. real ghosts..) and from all the laughs had, the trip proved to be very successful and enjoyed by all, while teaching us that there is nothing ‘shockingly’ different with people from a different religion, apart from protestants who apparently put their right sock on first.

Access 2009

ACCESS Day 1 (15/10/2009) - Cookstown Leisure Centre

The first activity of the ACCESS group was to go to Cookstown Leisure Centre and get to know the pupils from the different schools.  We got out of class at 12 o'clock and everyone was slightly anxious as we didn't know what to expect.  We got on the bus with pupils from St. Patricks Academy Dungannon & St. Josephs Donaghmore, on the way there the different schools sat separately.  

When we arrived everyone sat around the room in their own school groups.  There wasn't much interaction between the schools but then a person called Keira from Corrymeela organised some activities to get us interacting.  We got put into small groups with people from each school and did group activities such as Dingbats which brought the group together and and soon everyone was having fun.  We then did an activity which required us to discuss who we would like to live next door to us, out of a list of people. Such as a doctor, a gay nurse, a policeman, a politician, an ex-prisoner and a young Muslim.  This made us realise the prejudices we had as when we we're asked to think about them and most of us imagined them being male and when we found out more about them we realised that a job title is not always indicative of a persons character. 

We then got to play a few more games and on the way home the different schools were mixed and everyone was chatting and looking forward to the next meeting.  I think that the afternoon was a very worthwhile experience and I am glad I applied.  

Alistair Irwin