Transform conflict is a cross-Border human rights and citizenship development website arising from the Citizenship Development Programme, and the "Human Rights, Conflict and Dialogue" project, the latter - a partnership (in association with Trocaire) between the CDVEC in Dublin and two Northern Ireland education and library boards.
It aims to provide materials and approaches to citizenship and human rights education; encourage the use of appropriate active methodologies and provide guidance on their use; support partnership work between schools in a cross-community, cross-Border and transnational context; provide a database to enable schools to find partner schools within Ireland (North and South); and link to other appropriate websites.
All would count for nothing if the site was not delivering the goods: with some reservations, I say it does. One of the most useful (and touching and poignant) areas is the case studies part of the citizenship section. In one, students from the Ursuline Convent, Sligo, describe spending a few days with their counterparts from Our Lady of Mercy High School, Strabane, Co Tyrone, and volunteers from places ranging from Sweden to South America.
Teachers can contribute to the site directly with projects, news and ideas, and schools from all over Ireland are encouraged to register their details and then form relationships with other schools from different social backgrounds.
It would be helpful if the news section actually contained some news. It would not have to be self-generated - some stories should come from interested teachers and relevant stories on Internet sites such as ireland.com could easily be linked to on a weekly, or even daily, basis.
Also, the section where you try to find other schools to link with is either not working very well or just doesn't contain many names. If it is the latter, it might be easier to just have one long list rather than a search engine with confusing parameters. But these are small carps: overall the site is doing the right thing. It exists for the greater good of people on either side of the Border, regardless of religion, address or economic background.