"A crew from Northern Ireland and Ireland showed up almost every day to help me out and rebuild my home. Brought here by Project Children, they got work experience and training in the construction trades. They were wonderful, and I hated to see them go. But they left behind a new life for my girls and me."
--Tearing Down Walls Recipient

Habitat for Humanity has a long tradition of building houses for low-income families. It recruits volunteers from diverse backgrounds and has them work side by side--Arabs with Jews, Muslims with Christians, African-Americans with whites. The volunteers are not just building houses; they are building bridges between each other. Habitat for Humanity calls it "the theology of the hammer". It seemed natural for Project Children to hook up with Habitat for Humanity and so we did. The relationship was launched in Washington, DC in 1995.

That year, Project Children recruited young workers from vocational training schools in Northern Ireland, and they joined Habitat's volunteer work crews in Southeast Washington and at a second site in Northern Virginia. As they worked, the young trainees gained invaluable on-the-job experience. Since then, young people from Northern Ireland and Ireland have helped to build Habitat homes in Florida, Texas, New Jersey, and Montana.

From Atlantic City, New Jersey to Montana, Project Children's partnership with Habitat for Humanity is equally rewarding. The Protestants and Catholics find common ground as they work together for Habitat for Humanity. "One year the group was very tight and then something very interesting happened," says Sharon Essl, who runs the Project Children-Habitat program in New Jersey. "The group went to an Irish festival in Philadelphia. They joined a crowd listening to a rock band from Ireland. When the band started performing a political song with a hard Catholic spin, the Catholics in the Habitat group started to squirm. They had heard the lyrics before but never in mixed company. Now, standing alongside new Protestant friends, the lyrics sounded very different," says Essl. The Catholics quickly led the group away.

It was what Essl calls, "one of those turning points in life." In addition to seeing new ways of getting along with "old enemies," the Catholics and Protestants are gaining invaluable work experience. After ten weeks in America, the young people are better carpenters, bricklayers, painters, and plumbers. They return home a little tired but thrilled for the experience of improving their skills and their chances for employment. "It was dead-on (fantastic)," says Declan McGivern, of his Project Children experience with Habitat in Washington, DC.

Bob Myers, who has been one of the the guiding lights of our venture with Habitat, learned about Project Children when he was the US Consul General in Belfast. When he retired from the State Department, he wanted to get more involved in Project Children and the partnership with Habitat for Humanity seemed the perfect thing. Tom Jones, now the Director of Habitat International's DC office, has been a supporter from the very start. So has the AFL-CIO. The trade unions have given young workers important training and sometimes gone to the work sites to give expert advice one-on-one.

Our oversees support comes from Northern Ireland's Employment and Training Services and its counterpart FAS in the Republic of Ireland. We also get substantial support from Wider Horizons in the Republic--it's a program funded by the International Fund for Ireland, which in turn is funded with British, Irish, and American money.

A group of 12 young workers are scheduled to arrive in the Washington, DC area this October for an eight week work-training period with Habitat for Humanity.

For additional information on the Partnership Program with Habitat for Humanity, take a look at the Habitat Fact Sheet.