Why peacebuilding CEO was awarded OBE after pioneering good relations work in schools

A woman who has spearheaded good relations work in schools recently visited Windsor Castle to receive her OBE from a Member of the Royal Family after being honoured by the late Majesty Queen Elizabeth II.

Lisa Bennett-Dietrich, CEO of Community Relations in Schools (CRIS) joined the likes of actor Damian Lewis, author Sir Salman Rushdie and Clare Balding in collecting their awards after she was honoured for services to Peace, Education and Community Reconciliation in the Platinum Jubilee honours list.

“It came as a complete surprise, but I hope it helps to shine a light on the peacebuilding work of CRIS,” she said.

Lisa (43), who originally comes from South Armagh and now lives in Belfast with her family, has been working at CRIS ever since completing her Masters Degree in 2002.

CRIS, funded by the Community Relations Council (CRC) Core Funding Scheme, has been forging relationships between schools since the early 1980s, working with hundreds of schools and tens of thousands of pupils, school staff, parents, and carers.

In the early days CRIS - set up by a group of teacher activists - facilitated contact between schools that would have been positioned, apparently irrevocably, on opposing sides of the community divide at a time when the Troubles were at their height.

Over the years they also spearheaded curriculum material to facilitate dialogue between pupils across all phases of education as well as training teachers to build community relations projects within their schools.

However, CRIS lost much of its funding in 2010 following a Department of Education policy change away from the Schools Community Relations Programme (SCRP).

It took years of hard work and support from new funders, including the Community Relations Council (CRC) to rebuild CRIS.

Part of that reinvention was to draw upon the experiences from their most innovative projects, some of which have since won awards and accolades and been lauded as an example of good practice in community/good relations.

“We’ve flipped the focus over the last 12 years or so to work not only with children but also the adults using a whole school collaborative approach, with leadership training for school staff, principals and parents as key community stakeholders within schools,” Lisa says.

Lisa’s own work over the years has been focused on supporting families from Holy Cross Nursery in the Ardoyne, and Edenderry Nursery in the Shankill whose schools had created a scheme buddying the children with their counterparts in the other community.

CRIS were invited to extend this important work in 2003 by building relationship in which staff and parents linked to the school also ‘buddied up’. While children enjoyed Buddy Days on 8 to 10 occasions throughout the year, Lisa and colleagues worked with parents, establishing friendships, finding common ground, and slowly building trust.

“Strong bonds were built based on a growing understanding, trust and respect between the parent and carer body. Meanwhile their children would be innocently playing with each other and learning together. Hope had a vehicle through the children in which a new present and future could be possible.

“Parents wanted their children to have a different experience than they had growing up. They were getting the opportunities to talk about what can be seen as divisive or taboo issues but in a safe space and growing in trust and understanding with each other. There was always a fair amount of banter and hilarity too.”

Lisa admits she might well have left CRIS long ago due to sector burn-out, had it not been for the motivation and efforts of her team of colleagues and that ground-breaking project, which forged long lasting friendships between parents and carers on both sides of the Crumlin Road interface.

“This work can be tough, and I would have left CRIS a long time ago if it wasn't for what I was witnessing in Belfast and other localities we work with. I was seriously considering it, but for the hope I felt from working with Ardoyne and Shankill over these 20 years and seeing how when tensions rose within the community, quite the opposite happened within the groups,” Lisa says.

“A core part of our programming involves providing safe spaces for dialogue about experiences of growing up and living through the conflict and the ongoing issues that cause tensions and fear across communities. I believe that the most hope lies in the places many would least expect to find it.’

In recent years, Lisa has reached out to many of the people who were involved in the early days of that ground-breaking project and found that many have still retained cross-community friendships forged back then and even join up for Zumba classes and bingo sessions. These parents are keen advocates for the work continuing in their local Primary Schools in North Belfast through CRIS’s Everyday Peacebuilding programme.

“This project has been one of the closest to my heart and there has been a sense of empowerment - you see people change and you see their confidence lifted. That’s why I never stepped away from CRIS when things became tough,” Lisa says.

The success of CRIS has accelerated over the past 4-5 years while working with the Executive Office’s Urban Village Initiative to bring Buddy Up! to 40 Primary Schools across the five Urban Village areas in Belfast and Londonderry.

Lisa says, “It has been incredible to witness the growing inspiration that originated from two Nursery Schools devoted to supporting a peaceful future for their communities. It has influenced policy and practice but most importantly it has set the foundations for several thousand children, parents/carers and school staff to come together to build new norms and craft an alternative narrative of this wee place - that makes the heart feel good.”

To find out more information on Community Relations in Schools (CRIS) click here.