Part of our strategy is the creation of the Schools Links Programme, which is at the heart of the ethos of the International School for Peace Studies. Young people from both communities and both parts of Ireland are encouraged to participate in joint visits to experience the unique story of Messines and its opportunities for developing programmes of mutual understanding and cultural diversity.

Contact has also been initiated with educational establishments that will link our programme with schools and colleges in Belgium and in the wider European dimension to broaden the context of conflict resolution and reconciliation.

As an extension to this important work we encourage organisations and corporate companies to sponsor schools and college projects designed in content to allow young people to experience the Messines story through training programmes.

Of the many schools that have already participated all of them have recorded their overwhelming support for the programme and appreciation of the benefits of its outcomes.

One principal stated “I have never witnessed anything like it in forty years of teaching”, while the Head of History in a large High School wrote in the main provincial newspaper in Northern Ireland, “The programme achieved in three days what I have been trying to achieve in fourteen years in the classroom”.