Farset Youth & Community Development Project originated in 1982 under the management of community activist Jackie Hewitt. I was its founder Secretary and later Chairman. Funded under the auspices of the Youth Training Programme, it focused on the needs of young people in the Ainsworth area of Belfast’s Shankill Road. As it grew, it moved to premises on the Springmartin Road, on the West Belfast Protestant/Catholic interface. There it found an ideal opportunity to display its imaginative way of responding to community needs.

On derelict ‘no-man’s-land’ between Protestant and Catholic estates, Farset created a City Farm introducing an assortment of farm animals into the lives of local children, as well as training young people in horticultural and animal husbandry skills. Encouragingly, the City Farm, throughout the period of its existence, drew its visitors, its workers and its supporters from both sides of the communal ‘divide’.

Farset then came under the auspices of the Action for Community Employment (ACE) scheme and its continued growth – it eventually employed some 250 people – necessitated another move. In 1985 a new site was identified on the Springfield Road,once again directly straddling the ‘interface’ between Protestant and Catholic workingclass estates. In the 1970s this area had not only been deemed to be among the most socially disadvantaged in Europe, but had been described as Western Europe’s “most dangerous conflict point”. In reality, the new ‘site’ was a derelict building standing amid waste-ground, and many were the words of caution and predictions of failure voiced.

But for Farset’s management and staff, such a location seemed quite appropriate. If Farset’s purpose was to enhance the quality of life for local communities,to increase job opportunities for young people, and to make a contribution to confronting the sectarian divide . . . then what better place to be? The energies nurtured by Farset led to the initiation of numerous projects, with one project often leading directly to another. For example, during Farset’s Youth Exchange Scheme with France,a group of young people from Belfast and Dublin displayed a great interest while visiting the graves of the many Ulstermen and Irishmen who had died at the Battle of the Somme.

Out of this interest grew the Farset Somme Project which did much to counter prevailing miscinceptions by revealing that the,   sacrifice made during the Great War was a Shared One, involving Protestant andCatholic alike. Teams from Farset undertook the renovation of Ulster’s war memorial at the Somme – the Ulster Tower – erected in 1921, but lying locked up and disused.Other employees compiled an extensivecomputer database of all Irish casualties in the War, and a Visitor’s Interpretive Centre was constructed adjoining the Tower .The Somme Project also enabled Farset to fulfil one of its founding ambitions: to initiate projects which could become self-sustaining. Out of the Somme Project grew the Somme Association which now employs over 40 people, and is behind the widely acclaimed Somme Heritage Centre at Conlig in County Down.