Peace and Conflict Studies - Spring 2014

Peace and Conflict Studies Volume 21, Number 1 41 involved in the way their community functions. Under this model Miller (2000) envisages a society, In which ordinary people are heavily involved in deciding issues and achieving goals, not just voting for governments and then letting them make decisions for them. ..If we are going to rely on active citizenship to decide issues, then citizens have to be prepared to see beyond their own interests and commitments and take a wider, more impartial view. ..This identification...gives you a sense of responsibility for the whole, and not merely the particular subgroup you belong to, whether this is an ethnic group, or a group of like-minded activists. (p. 29) Public Achievement’s evaluation indicates early evidence of impact both in terms of increased civic knowledge of participants and also an increased readiness to approach politicians and take action on what they consider to be important issues. Research, by Smyth (2013), documents the way in which attitudes of young people towards politicians have changed throughout the course of the project. In fact the young people expressed surprise at the ease with which they could approach key figures, “The access that we could have with politicians as young people, and how easy it was to go up to Stormont (the home of the parliament in Northern Ireland)...in fact they wanted you to come up!” (p. 344). In particular, Smyth’s research demonstrates that the media training and the quality of the equipment plays a key role in giving participants the confidence needed to approach and, at times, challenge politicians. This highlights the importance of the skills training element of the project. Moreover, Smyth’s (2013) research indicates a level of impact beyond the scope of the project, with some evidence of participants going on to become involved in school and student politics (pp. 344-345). The active citizenship model is not only important in encouraging greater forms of youth participation, but also has particular benefits given the problematic nature of national identity in post-accord Northern Ireland. The baseline data indicates that WIMPS participants have diverse backgrounds. Ages of participants range from 12 to 30 years old, with the mean age of participants being 17.3 years. Both female and males participate in WIMPS, although there is a larger proportion of females (70%) than males (30%). Most notably, however, there is an almost equal distribution of participants from the Protestant (52%) and Catholic (48%) communities. Smyth (2012) argues that it is the active citizenship model that allows the creation of a neutral space (both virtual and face-to-face) where members of the different traditions can come to work together on common goals.