Recently I was in Northern Ireland as a volunteer for a year
at the Corrymeela Community. Corrymeela Community was founded by Ray Davey who
was a prisoner of war in Dresden and witnessed the Dresden Bombing. Ray felt
called to establish a centre in Ballycastle and his vision was to create an
open village, where people of all faiths and backgrounds could come together
and learn to live in a community.
Northern Ireland as a country had its own share of ups and
downs. Many people lost their lives. After the Good Friday Agreement in 1998, figures
on physical violence has reduced. However, violence is still lingering in other
forms. Wars with guns have come to an end but
peace is still a distant star. People still seem fractioned over especially
between two communities, Catholic and Protestant or Irish and British or
Unionism/Loyalism and Nationalism/Republicanism.
In the midst of the ongoing conflict and division,
Corrymeela has been acting as a catalyst for
change. It works with different individuals, groups, politicians, and other
stake holders trying to plant some seed of hope and peace. Its main office is in Belfast and the residential centre
is located in Ballycaslte, a wonderful calm place next to the sea. The center hosts
groups with different goals and objectives where building peace is the one of
the core values. It hosts a wide range of groups like reconciliation groups,
respite groups and reflective learning groups where I worked with them in different
capacities as a volunteer. Alongside the groups, I also worked in the Kitchen
and Housekeeping.
Corrymeela Ballycaslte is extended around six acres of land
with three major living sites, Main House, Davey Village and Coventry. The Main
House and Davey Village are open for the groups at the center whereas Coventry is only for the volunteers working on the
site. Except that, there is Tara Tavern where Arts and Crafts and Play Room are
situated. The rest of the area is an open field.
Every year around 7000 individual visit Corrymeela including
groups and 400 volunteers come to support the ongoing work of Corrymeela.
Volunteers are divided in different categories. Volunteers serving for a year
are called One Year Volunteers, midterm volunteers for 3 months, extended
midterm volunteers for more than 3 months, short term volunteers for few hours
to few weeks and summer volunteers. Except these there are also office
volunteers. Volunteers live together in Coventry and the age can be varied as
Corrymeela accepts volunteers of different age. I had a wonderful year of my
life as a One Year Volunteer at Corrymeela,
where the people were so supportive and
positive. There was always someone around you to help when you needed. I had the opportunity to learn the true
meaning of hospitality along with the skills of
being a good facilitator. Working there has provided me a good taste of how it
feels to work with groups, be it a child group or a university group.
Corrrymeela is a small place but it gives you opportunity to meet people from around the world and share a wide
range of knowledge and experiences. The variation of English
dialect at one small place is just an amazing experience. Corrrymeela also
hosts international groups. One of the examples of international exchange would
be the one year volunteering program where 12 individuals from around the world
are selected to work and leave as a team for a year at the center. This is a place where you can easily
experience the world just being inside the boundary of 6 acres. You can see
people of different race, different faith, no faith, different nationality,
different gender, different perspective, and different dialect along with some
similarities as well which totally symbolizes the world in a smaller version.
Hence, I would like to call this place, A Smaller World.
