Latest news with #FightingWords
Belfast Telegraph
15-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Belfast Telegraph
‘This is a truly unique opportunity': Young writers from NI and Caribbean team up to produce novel
The project will see 15 teenagers each from Trinidad and Tobago, Jamaica and Northern Ireland working together physically and virtually to produce the novel. It will consist of themes close to the writers' hearts, ensuring that their voices are heard. The novel will be published in May 2026 and will feature contributions from all three countries. It will also have a digital aspect, enhanced with animation, music, moving image and artist-designed graphics. The project is funded by the British Council and run in partnership with the charity Fighting Words, located at the Crescent Arts Centre in Belfast, as well as the Jamaica Book Festival. Aoife Osborne, operations and programme coordinator at Fighting Words NI, said the project is aimed at celebrating 'everything that is magical and empowering about youth writing'. 'At Fighting Words NI, our mission is to unlock the joy and power of creative writing for children and young people,' she added. '[This project] will support young writers from across NI to create, collaborate and connect on an international level. 'It is a truly unique opportunity for young writers in NI to open new doors and share their stories, experiences and perspectives.' Fighting Words NI is dedicated to empowering people aged 6-18 through creative writing. Since 2015, Fighting Words NI has reached more than 24,000 young people across the country, providing them with opportunities to write their own stories and share their voices with the world. Those taking part in the project will be selected through Fighting Words NI's Write Club; similar selection programmes will run in Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago. The project will also feature contributions from established creatives across the three countries, including authors, illustrators, musicians and digital artists, who will act as mentors and facilitators throughout the year. British Council director Jonathan Stewart said: 'It's wonderful to see this youth-led arts project bring together a shared love of storytelling from NI, Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago. 'At the British Council we believe in the power of creativity to connect cultures and communities. By placing young people at the centre of this collaboration, we're nurturing talent, sparking imagination, and encouraging meaningful global dialogue.'
Irish Times
14-05-2025
- General
- Irish Times
‘There's a spark in Fighting Words that ignites the minute you come through the door'
I was 18, an early school leaver, interviewing with Fighting Words operations manager Sara Bennett at the organisation's office on Behan Square, Dublin, when who should walk in through the front door but its co-founder Roddy Doyle ? It was February 2016. I had just come through an early school-leavers course in Ballyfermot, which focused on equipping us with the skills to enter the workforce. An internship placement was part of the programme so I contacted Fighting Words, which I had heard of through my wonderful, thoughtful instructors at Kylemore Community Training Centre. Although I still wanted to go to college, which I eventually did, it turned out to be a long road. There was a time, back in early 2015, when my friends and peers were preparing to sit their Leaving Cert exams, that I felt like I'd be lost forever. So to be there, occupying a building with Roddy Doyle, entertaining the idea that I was going to be able to work there? It didn't seem possible. I was thrilled but a little terrified when Sara offered me a six-month placement. Wayward, totally unsure of myself, I'd always wanted to write. I had never felt that I had much to offer in the way of anything else. There's a spark that exists in Fighting Words that ignites the minute you come through the front door. After more than 15 years in operation, that spark is stronger than ever. As a young person, volunteering in Fighting Words fostered in me a stronger sense of self, a stronger sense of community. As I met and worked alongside people of different ages, at different stages of life, I gained an understanding that there was no such thing as a straight line through the middle. My path was no more unique than anybody else's, but it was my story, and the stories were always what mattered most. READ MORE After my placement finished, I stayed on as a regular volunteer mentor for more than two years, before starting an undergraduate degree in English and creative writing at UCD. I graduated with my BA in 2022 and my MFA in 2023, at 26. I had come a long way in eight years. My first novel is due to be published next January. The work in this supplement is vibrant, vulnerable, at times playful and at others sombre, but always an undercurrent of hope runs through. It's the type of thing that can only come from a place where the creative mind is celebrated, where the opportunity to come together with others is offered. It can be an isolating thing, wanting to write, when the digital world draws your attention to every corner of the globe, when every scandal and tragedy sleeps beside you on your bedside locker, waiting to greet you when the sun rises. It's too easy to feel like what you want to make doesn't matter, that there is nobody out there willing to receive it. That's why it's important to bring young creative minds together, to engage with them on equal ground and provide a space for them to access themselves unfettered by the restraints of their everyday lives. My formative years, without question, were the years I spent in Fighting Words. The friends I made, the satisfaction of feeling useful, the confidence and trust given to me by the staff there I wouldn't have received anywhere else were crucial to me as an early school leaver. I see that help being given to visiting students, interns, volunteers, every time I visit. It is a space where every single participant has something to gain. At the centre of it are the stories and the poems, but it is in the people where the magic lives. Each and every one of you. Djamel White's debut novel, All Them Dogs, will be published in 2026 by John Murray Press and Riverhead Books
Irish Times
14-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Irish Times
1,2,Spraoi: Togra nua a cheanglaíonn an scríbhneoireacht chruthaitheach agus an mata
Is togra ceannródaíoch é an togra 1, 2 Spraoi!, atá ag iarraidh oideachas matamaitice a thabhairt isteach sa 21ú haois, tríd an scéalaíocht chruthaitheach. Is iarracht chomhoibrithe atá sa togra seo idir an Chomhairle um Oideachais Gaeltachta agus Gaelscolaíochta (COGG), an Dr. Lorraine Harbison – Ollamh Comhlach san Oideachas Matamaitice ag Ollscoil Chathair Bhaile Átha Cliath agus ball de chuid CASTeL – agus foireann Fighting Words. Is iad aidhmeanna an togra ná matamaitic a chomhtháthú le scéalaíocht Gaeilge, timpeallacht dhearfach a chruthú ina bhfoghlaimíonn daltaí coincheapa lárnacha an mhata, agus go mbeadh deis acu a scileanna teanga agus cruthaitheachta a fheabhsú. Cuireadh tús leis an togra i nGaelscoil Bhaile Munna mar chuid de Sheachtain na Gaeilge 2024 agus bhí Scoil Uí Ghramhnaigh i Ráth Chairn, Co. na Mí agus Scoil Náisiúnta Thír an Fhia, Conamara, páirteach sa togra píolótach seo freisin. Mar gheall ar an aiseolas dearfach ó na múinteoirí agus ó na gasúir sna scoileanna sin, leathnaíodh an togra i mbliana chun Gaelscoil Bharra i mBaile Átha Claith, Scoil Bhreandáin ar an Eachléim i Maigh Eo agus Scoil na Maighdine Muire i gCamus, Conamara, a chur san áireamh. Chun a saothar féin a spreagadh agus tuiscint a thabhairt dóibh ar an seánra scéalta matamaitice, cuireadh trí scéal agus ábhar tacaíochta ar fáil do na múinteoirí agus do na páistí: 'Réiteach na Rósanna', ina bhfuil patrún uimhreacha le haithint chun breith ar an ngadaí, 'Tic Toc Crog', scéal ina gcabhraíonn na carachtair 'Digit Each' agus 'Ana Logach' leis an gcrogall an nasc idir an clog 12 uair agus an clog 24 uair a thuiscint, agus 'Cad é an Seans?' ina ndírítear ar an dóchúlacht chun fáil amach cé a aimseoidh an taisce ar dtús. Tá na scéalta seo agus an t-ábhar tacaíochta ar fáil do chách ag Ag eascairt as na scéalta seo agus na ceardlanna scríbhneoireachta a chur Fighting Words ar fáil do na daltaí, scríobh siad a gcuid scéalta mata féin a foilsíodh i mbailiúchán darb ainm 1, 2, Spraoi! Thug sé seo deis do na daltaí an mata a nascadh leis na spéiseanna agus na suimeanna a bhí acu féin. Chabhraigh sé leo an ról lárnach atá ag an mata ina saol laethúil a thuiscint. Seoladh an leabhar seo ar champus Naomh Phadraig, Ollscoil Chathair Bhaile Átha Cliath, agus rinneadh ceiliúradh ar inniúlacht agus ar cruthaitheacht na ndaltaí. READ MORE Tacaíonn cur chuige 1, 2 Spraoi! leis an mbéim atá sa churaclam Matamaitice athfhorbartha, Curaclam Matamaitice na Bunscoile, ar oideolaíocht spraíúil agus cleathais ar nós comhrá mata agus tascanna dúshlánacha cognaíocha. Is áis iontach measúnuithe iad na scéalta freisin. Nuair a dhéantar anailís orthu, tugtar léargas luachmhar ar thuiscint choincheapúil na ndaltaí agus is féidir an t-eolas seo a úsáid chun múineadh agus foghlaim a phleanáil. Beidh an dara cnuasach scéalta mata nuachumtha á fhoilsiú an mhí seo.
Irish Times
14-05-2025
- General
- Irish Times
The lion and the forest
Once upon a time, there was a lion living in the forest. He was an aggressive lion, which made people flee from the area. Despite this, the lion wanted some people to move into the forest. The lion was also afraid of guns and bullets. It rained well in the forest. One family decided to settle in the forest. As they approached the area where the fierce lion lived, they encountered a man who warned them that he had left the forest because of the aggressive lion. However, the family was undeterred by his warning and chose to settle in the heart of the forest. That very night, the lion attacked the family, injuring a boy who was sleeping near the animals and taking one of the family's goats. The commotion woke the family, and shots were fired in response. By the early morning, the family decided to leave the forest for good and never returned. READ MORE Illustration supplied by students at Taageer Primary School, Dangorayo District, Puntland, Somalia Fighting Words is working with World Vision Ireland to support creative writing activities with children in Somalia, South Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo. This long-term partnership - funded by Irish Aid - is part of a broader five-year programme that World Vision is leading to empower and protect children and women. These creative education opportunities can strengthen children's resiliency, build their confidence and contribute to the bigger objective of protecting children from violence.
Irish Times
14-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Irish Times
Celebrating 10 years of Fighting Words student storytelling: ‘Not for a minute have they ceased to amaze'
As I recall it, I was just calling in for a cup of coffee. It was spring 2013 and Seán Love had texted me out of the blue. He was in Belfast – in East Belfast – a hop and a skip from me, in fact, with a couple of people I knew, in the Skainos Centre on the Lower Newtownards Road. I knew Seán through his work at Amnesty International and latterly at Fighting Words, which he and Roddy Doyle had set up in Dublin a few years before. I kept saying I was going down to do a workshop. Kept saying and never doing. So, I hopped it and skipped it to Skainos to say hello ... and walked out the door again an hour later having agreed to help set up a Fighting Words centre in Belfast. I don't know that I have spent many better hours in my life. It took a while to get everything in place, because – how do I say it? – things work a little differently here in the North. This is in no small part thanks to Young at Art/the Belfast Children's Festival, whose then director, Ali FitzGibbon, became chair of the board; the 174 Trust at the Duncairn Centre in North Belfast; and flagship grants from the Ireland Funds and Ulster Garden Villages, Fighting Words Belfast was offering its first writing workshops to school-age children in 2015. The windows of our second-floor home in Skainos took in gable-ends with loyalist paramilitary murals, the famous Harland & Wolff shipyard cranes, the brand-new Titanic Film Studio beyond, and the profile, in the further distance, of Cave Hill. Belfast's pasts and possible futures viewed from the room where, on any given day, 20 or 30 stories took shape. The opening chapter always agreed collectively, everything that came after bearing the stamp of those 20 or 30 individual imaginations. Not for a minute in the 10 years since have they ceased to amaze. READ MORE In those 10 years Fighting Words Belfast has become Fighting Words Northern Ireland. Under the directorship of Hilary Copeland we have reached 25,000 participants, working with schools and community groups from Poyntzpass to Derry, and from Carrickfergus to Enniskillen. We have published thousands of stories and many beautiful anthologies, and audiences at the Lyric in Belfast, the Abbey in Dublin and venues across NI, have listened, wide-eyed, to the plays, poems, rap songs and stories that our young writers have performed and read at live showcases. [ Fighting Words Northern Ireland launches new magazine for young writers Opens in new window ] The challenges have been enormous and still are. (If 2024 was a particularly good year for you, don't be shy to offer a bit of support .) From the outset, there has been a close relationship between Fighting Words NI and the Seamus Heaney Centre at Queen's University Belfast . Fighting Words staff run regular training sessions for Creative Writing MA students who are interested in volunteering with them. The relationship has deepened in the past year, with the appointment of Stephen Connolly as the Seamus Heaney Centre's first outreach and engagement officer and the opening of a new Heaney Centre building, with a room large enough to host Fighting Words workshops. It didn't hurt that Stephen turned out to be a close friend of Mr Duck, the Fighting Words grumpy editor. (Though his quack is worse than his bite. Mr Duck's, that is.) It was a source of real pride to all involved in the Heaney Centre that the first writing produced in the new building, last June, was by a Primary 5 class from Botanic Primary School, a short walk from Queen's University, in the heart of the Holylands, among the most diverse neighbourhoods in the city. In fact one of the greatest endorsements I have ever heard, or read, of Fighting Words NI came from another workshop in the Heaney Centre in the opening weeks of this year. Asked how the workshop had made them feel, one young writer said simply, and with only a slight variation in spelling, 'bombarded with joy'. You would get that on a T-shirt. You would – for all that the challenges remain (again, feel free to help) – take that with you into your next 10 years. Fighting Words NI is very grateful for the support of its two principal funders, the Government of Ireland through the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade Reconciliation Fund, and the Arts Council of Northern Ireland through the National Lottery
