Nursery World - Making friends

Prejudice, racism and sectarianism can take root at a very early age. A new initiative in Northern Ireland is working to prevent this, as Simon Vevers reports Early years practitioners could play a key role in cementing peace and understanding between communities after many years of conflict in Northern Ireland through a ground-breaking initiative which teaches young children to respect and celebrate differences.

Early years practitioners could play a key role in cementing peace and understanding between communities after many years of conflict in Northern Ireland through a ground-breaking initiative which teaches young children to respect and celebrate differences.

The Media Initiative for Children - a joint effort by the early years organisation NIPPA and a US-based charity, the Peace Initiatives Institute - was developed as a pilot in 2004, and has now been rolled out to 1,000 pre-school children in Northern Ireland.

NIPPA chief executive Siobhan Fitzpatrick says her organisation was prompted to move from being non-sectarian to adopting a pro-active anti-sectarian stance following the publication of research by Paul Connolly, a professor of education at Queen's University in Belfast.

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