Participation in Action: How a felled tree united a town's young and old

Twenty-five young people from Laurencetown in County Down developed the Rings of Time project after seeing the growth rings in the stump of a felled horse chestnut tree in the grounds of their local community centre.

The young people, aged between 14 and 18, decided to create an intergenerational project to record the history of their local village, using the felled tree as inspiration.

The young people are working with Tullyish Historical Society and a local genealogist as well as taking oral histories from families in the community to discover the village’s history.

They will record their research in an archive to be held at the community centre and will produce a DVD and a website. Since it inspired the project, a "reflection chair", in which members of the public can sit and think of the past, will be carved into the horse chestnut stump.

The young people voted on what positions each would take, with 16-year-old Caolan Campbell chosen as the chairman.

"Being chairman has given me more confidence," he says. "I’ve learnt teamwork and delegating skills. It looks good on the CV so it’ll help me get a job later. We’re also doing a six-week personal development course so we’ll get a qualification at the end."

Caolan says that he had an interest in history, but has never been involved in a community project before. "The project has joined the community together," he says. "It was fun talking to older people, we didn’t really do that before now. Now we’re helping with a dinner for the pensioners in the village and we’re going to help take them on trips."

On the project’s impact on peer relationships, he says: "Most of us knew each other when we started because we went to school together, but there were some new people, and now we’re all friends. I want to go on to do more projects after this."

Invaluable skills

Youth worker Anne Murphy is co-ordinating the project along with five volunteers from Laurencetown. She thinks that the young people involved are gaining invaluable skills as well as strengthening community relations by building intergenerational relationships.

"The young people are running the project themselves and it’s inspiring them to want to be leaders. They are learning research, IT, and decision making skills and how to work well in a group. They’ve had to negotiate with different people and at the moment they’re looking around for the best web hosting deal for the website.

"The social aspect is also fantastic. Younger people didn’t have many opportunities to work with older people in the community before this."

The Heritage Lottery fund awarded Laurencetown, Lenaderg and Tullyish Community Association a grant of £24,300 to fund the project through its Young Roots Scheme, which provides grants of up to £25,000 to enable young people to become involved in heritage projects.