A number of extremely special guests visited the children last week. Minister for Defence, Mr Willie O’Dea, and the Chief of Staff of the Defence Forces, Lieutenant General Dermot Earley, hosted a visit of Nobel Peace Laureate, Mr John Hume and former Commissioner Richard Burke to the Defence Forces Training Centre in the Curragh. Poet Laureate John Hume is the current patron of the foundation, while Mr Burke is its President.

The mission of the Arts for Peace Foundation is to "build cultural bridges through our children". It aims to use shared interests through common creative and co-operative experiences, programmes to develop tolerance, healing, mutual understanding, trust and friendship are created and a worldwide network of peace advocates is created.

The idea for the Arts for Peace Foundation came about as a response to the horrifying escalation in global violence in the last few years, with countless innocent lives both adult and child being lost.

Founder Arts for Peace Foundation, Elizabeth Garrahy, said: "It is going brilliantly. The children are becoming very close and are finding they are good at things that they didn’t know they could be good at. When they first came here, they told us they could not sing, but after a week of lessons they are all singing beautifully. It helps them to build up confidence and they can then transfer this confidence to other activities." During the two weeks, the children took part in a huge number of activities, such as swimming, storytelling, obstacle courses, drama therapy, movement and dance therapy and singing and voice lesions. The emphasis was on peace education and therapeutic recreation. They also learned about conflict resolution. The children were selected to take part in the course after the Arts for Peace Foundation forged links with the Right to Play group in Palestine and the Home Schools office in Moyross in Limerick.

The Arts for Peace Foundation is a global organisation based in Ireland, whose mission is to develop a residential facility which would provide practical programmes in education, therapy and recreation for children in Ireland and abroad with a goal of development of peaceful co-existence. "Using shared interests through common creative and co-operative experiences, programmes to develop tolerance, healing, mutual understanding, trust and friendship are created and a worldwide network of peace advocates is created," it is explained on its website.

The Foundation focuses on promoting positive understanding, tolerance and healing with special emphasis on those whose lives have been impacted by conflict. Its new base at Durrow is currently under construction, so the Defence Forces at the Curragh stepped in to offer their location as a base for the programme for two weeks.

Busy few months for the Curragh Youth Project

MEMBERS of the Curragh Youth Project (CYP) were kept very busy over the last few months, with lots of activities taking place, from gardening to studying. They recently resumed work on the memorial garden, which work had started on in early summer. Due to bad weather conditions, they had to suspend working on it for a period of time but were delighted to have started back.

One week of the summer was dedicated purely to fun in the CYP with a number of tournaments taking place. One of the highlights was the soccer blitz, which was a huge hit with the kids. A lot of the members also took part in pool and air-hockey tournaments. Then, the large group split up into two separate groups, each of whom took a trip to the T·in adventure centre in Carlingford. Overall, it was really enjoyable two days for everyone who took part.

The recent Stepping Stones Programme was also a huge success. This programme is aimed at helping students who are leaving primary school to have a smooth transition into secondary school. A number of these young people have since come back to form new groups.

Huge congratulations must also be given to all the new members of CPY who received their Fundamentals in Food Hygiene qualification. The youth café is now running smoothly, and there have been a few new tasty additions to the menu - the waffles and hotdogs are big hits with the customers.

The CYP also took part in the Pride of Place awards, with the judgment being carried out in July. The results are to be announced this month so everyone has their fingers crossed that CYP will be successful.

A haunting weekend at Kildare Village

KILDARE Village shopping centre was host to a spooky Halloween event last week, as children from all over the town gathered to watch the Haunting Halloween Parade take place.

The ghoulish parade was part of a number of special Halloween events which took place across the weekend, with something to spook every member of the family. One of the highlights was the mask-making workshops and a visit from the fabulous Paula Lambert Puppet Theatre. To make sure that everyone had a scary Halloween outfit for trick-or-treating, Vijaya Bateson of Artastic, the Kildare-based street theatre group, visited schools and groups in the area and taught the pupils how to make creative and unique masks. For all the other young people, there were mask making drop-in workshops at Kildare Village throughout the weekend so everyone had the chance to take part in all the fun and create spooky masks and creepy accessories.

On the Saturday, the famous Paula Lambert Puppet Show visited during the afternoon, while on the Sunday, the scary Haunting Halloween Parade took place, which certainly put everyone in the Halloween spirit.

While the kids were having fun, there was also the opportunity to indulge in some bargain shopping at the village. Kildare Village Outlet Shopping is open seven days a week and has late night shopping every Thursday until 8pm. While there, you can discover previous seasons’ collections from 36 designer brands at prices reduced by up to 60%, 7 days a week, all year round. For further information visit www.KildareVillage.com or call Kil-dare Village Tourist Information Centre on 045 520501.

Telethon funraising in Curragh camp

MEMBERS of the Defence Forces Training Centre at the Curragh Camp put their support behind this year’s People in Need Telethon - by raising a total of •6873.62 for this great charity event.

The members came up with a number of novel ways to raise money for the telethon. Among their ideas was the holding of a soccer match on the top of Lugnaquilla Mountain in Wicklow. They also put up a military bailey bridge on one of the access roads into the Curragh Camp, and collected a voluntary toll from motorists to use it. The money that was donated by the people passing through the bridge was then added to their People in Need charity fund.

This year’s People in Need Telethon was the most successful ever. To date, people around Ireland have raised over •7.5 million and that amount is still rising. All the money raised will be distributed to charitable organisations around the country.

 

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