Tuesday when Casey and I were strolling back from lunch, I looked up at the Creative Learning Centre and noticed its shocking size. Together with the Nerve Centre and the Café Nervosa to its left, they create a strong presence on Magazine Street. Standing with my back against the historic walls, I could see the significance of this triumvirate. The café looks cool and inviting with its deep blue façade, the actual Nerve Centre gives off a creative vibe with its angularly chiseled front and captivating logo, while the Creative Learning Centre physically overwhelms the other two it demands less attention with its ordinary brick exterior. From my first wee tour of the Creative Learning Centre, I would not have guessed its great size. I can’t believe I hadn’t even noticed it until yesterday. It’s something I walk by every other day, but before Tuesday I wrote it off as just another Derry building. I've posted a wee tour of the three buildings so you can make a judgment for yourself (with music by Mika because the UK loves him!)

The unexpected partnership of modern technology and indigenous accents just adds to the Nerve Centre’s quirkiness. After we’ve wound up the stairs, through the doors and down the dark hallway we come to Editing Suite 3, where a continuously running vintage radiator is situated next to computers and tape decks… and then there are the semi-old, semi-rickety wooden doors that only open automatically. If I came back to the Nerve Centre every day I would venture into its hidden rooms and certainly find more oddities. I love that I found this place, or rather that Bucknell found it for me. I was able to work somewhere that I think reflects my personality more than, say, a political organization. The Nerve Centre is groovy and cutting edge and there’s always something new to explore, like Mervin’s back office or any of the media rooms on the second floor. If I only ever learned about Northern Ireland in a classroom setting I might think there is nothing more than a conflict that smothers the country.

Now that I think about it, the physical layout of the Nerve Centre and its constituents matches its complexity. From the street, with three stories and just a few windows, it looks like a townhouse. But once you enter and explore the winding staircase and the back corridors, you realize you can endlessly search for new nooks. On the ground floor there is a small theatre, a ticket office, an equipment stockroom and a few offices. Moving up to the second floor, they house plenty of video/sound editing suites, recording studios, offices and computer labs. The concert venue resides on the top floor. It’s amazing that all of these things can fit in one building, let alone one that looks so small from the storefront. Walking around the Nerve Centre is like navigating through a labyrinth. Even though I’ve walked around it so many times I still feel like I should carry a rope up the stairs and through the doors to the editing suite so I can find my way back out (as per Theseus and the Minotaur).

On Wednesday we traveled as a group to Stormont, the Northern Ireland Assembly building in Belfast. The building is split into small sections by walls, doors and corridors. We walked through doors that open to more hallways and more doors, with so many rooms, just like at the Nerve Centre. The great room (dare I call it a lobby?) at Stormont is opulent and grand in absolute terms, with its red and blue detailed ceiling, but loses significance when related to the overall grandeur of the entire estate. We climbed gilded stairs to a room identified as a Sinn Fein conference suite. After we moved to another room through more doors and down more corridors (due to top secret Sinn Fein business – I don’t know), I recognized a similarity between Stormont’s segmented configuration and that of the Nerve Centre. However, I’m having trouble drawing any parallels between the motives for each.

I’ll admit that I feel cool when I march through the back hallways in the Nerve Centre, but doing so in Stormont was absolutely intimidating. We stuck out like zoo animals with our band of yellow visitor passes. Security guards herded us around to the bathroom or outside for tea and biscuits. I felt like a complete outsider at Stormont – so powerless in this house of negotiation. I’m thinking that the design of the building is serving its security purpose. It would have been so easy for me to get lost and not find my way back to the lobby. If hoodlums decided to storm Stormont they would probably be too disorientated to actually accomplish anything in the identical hallways. I feel like I'm alone with peace at the Nerve Centre but Stormont is overwhelming... so I would say that the constructions of these two very different buildings serve their purposes. While I can find refuge in the crannies of the NC, I felt pressure like I could be cornered at any moment by the guards. I was actually kind of shocked that purely the structure of a building could reinforce its message so exactly.

On Monday when we got together in Belfast everyone shared their reflections on what we have encountered during the past two weeks. Even though it has been there the whole time, I didn’t put together until two days ago the hope that exists for the children of Northern Ireland. When someone asked the Catholic priest, Aden Troy, about whether integrated education could solve some aspects of the conflict he replied with a wonderfully stimulating answer. He said that when people say something like that, they are putting too much weight on the education system and the children themselves to carry the entire country out of conflict. At that point, being my cheesy self, I thought about Whitney Houston’s song “The Greatest Love of All,” in which she starts out singing, “I believe the children are our future, teach them well and let them lead the way.”

This brought me back to our first day at the Nerve Centre two Tuesdays ago when Brendan took us around on a wee tour. Since he is only a student there, he didn’t have too much to say about any given stop he brought us to, but I had so many intuitions during my whirlwind introduction to the great cross-cultural center. In the technological learning space adjacent to the Nerve Centre we peered through a sliver-like window of a door leading to an up-to-date computer lab (a rare site in Derry). There, one or two instructors led a handful of kids around 11 years of age. They watched so intently as they acquired editing skills that I can only dream of learning. As we walked away from the room down the technology-filled corridor, one of the young boys headed towards the bathroom clinging to what I recognized as a Cheetos bag at the time, but looking back was probably some Taytos. This scene introduced me to a few of my first major surprises: children were attending this recreational center during what I would call the start of the school day (10:00 am) and they were able to travel freely to the bathroom while munching on crisps. Hm… children in Northern Ireland aren’t too different from those I know at home. The only difference is that the kids here munch on Taytos and have to live in a country historically cursed by conflict.


Actually, that’s a pretty substantial difference. It’s mind-blowing for me to think that the paramilitary villains made famous by their acts of violence throughout the past 40 years were once children also. It’s amazing how early harmless, open-minded children can be turned into people-hating machines. The sociologist Dr. Chris Gilligan gave us a lecture on Friday about the media’s manipulation of children throughout the conflict in Northern Ireland. Through photographs children have represented the pinnacle of peace and innocence. Not only do the photographs themselves influence their audience, but the actual children residing within the film are clearly being manipulated themselves. We have seen plenty of photographs with toddlers sporting Catholic/Protestant getup in the middle of sectarian showdowns. On Monday we heard that research shows sectarianism brewing within children who are THREE YEARS OLD. So these kids can tell you who they hate right after they joyfully say, “Look! I have a bellybutton!” After hearing two depressing allusions to the manipulation of children in this country, I thought about how much I laud the Nerve Centre for their unprejudiced stance in a divided world.


In his book Giving: How Each of Us Can Change the World Bill Clinton illustrates how we can address the issue of improving communities around the world. In one of the opening chapters he says,

“The great mission of the early twenty-first century is to move our neighborhoods, our nation, and the world toward integrated communities of shared opportunities, shared responsibilities, and a shared sense of genuine belonging, based on the essence of every successful community: that our common humanity is more important than our interesting differences.”

I believe that the Nerve Centre completely embodies this description of community-wide problem solving. The boy I saw walking to the W.C. doesn’t have to worry about sectarian strife when he comes to the Nerve Centre to learn media and technology skills. The fact that he takes the bus during his school day, traveling from a Catholic or Protestant primary school, shows that this community is interested in overcoming the obvious differences to promote the common good. Learning how to interact with media and create things that can touch others is just as important as learning math and here children do indeed have share opportunities, responsibilities, and sense of belonging. Hopefully they will be able to carry this strategy through to adulthood, applying it to other areas of their lives. From my perspective, it’s sad that children have to take buses to find this, but the mere exposure to life outside the conflict is making Derry a better place. I agree with the priest Aden Troy that it’s not fair to let the children bear the burden of lifting Northern Ireland out of conflict… but I know that when people come together in groups here, they have tremendous faith in the future. On Tuesday I saw a lady sporting a green shirt with a tree stitched on it and words below it reading believe in the future. Maybe it’s just fashionable to wear clothes with idealistic messages, but I like to think that she (and others) really believes that the future brings new life as suggested by the vivacious tree.

The Nerve Centre and the Creative Learning Centre, located adjacent to the Nerve Centre on Magazine St, house more than just computer classes. Students can take music lessons or animation classes, utilize the numerous recording studios, and even just come to hang out. If you’ve ever typed in “Nerve Centre” into the YouTube search queue you can tell that there is a pretty active concert scene. It’s cool to know that Derry youth flock here on the weekends but can then get pulled in by its intriguing setup with loads of opportunities. I can tell that school has just let out when I see teenagers start to stroll into the building carrying their instruments and wide smiles. I’m so impressed because I can tell these kids are actually yearning to learn. They may not realize what great experiences they’re getting, and what violent scenes they’re missing, just by spending their afternoons in the Nerve Centre and off the streets. Although they provide enlightenment for young people, they are not age exclusive.

Take our mentor Brendan for example. He has a family and had spent fifteen years in his old job as a social worker. After a few sad turns in his life, he decided that the mental health industry was not going to take him to greater places in life. Brendan decided to make a drastic career change towards media. On Tuesday when I was testing out different local folk songs for our final video he sang along to both the Catholic tune (The Town I Loved So Well) and the Loyalist one (Derry's Walls). He hummed along to each with the same jovial tone as he does when he sings everyday. Who knows if he knew one because he learned it as a kid and the other because he knew a wise imitation of it… I didn't want to assume. Brendan uses the Nerve Centre for its great video opportunities. On one or two occasions Brendan didn't know the answer to one of my questions regarding Final Cut, so we work together to figure it out.  It’s great that he’s learning at the same time I am. His story further shows that not only is the Nerve Centre unbiased, but a lot of the time sectarianism has nothing to do with why people come here.


I was talking with Cara, one of the TAs, when I couldn’t think of what to write. She posed this question for me: can you find anything remotely similar to the Nerve Centre in the United States? Reflecting on this question helped me tie together the goal of this post. I had to combine several organizations from my hometown to come up with anything close to paralleling the missions of the Nerve Centre. There are specialized music schools like Eastman, I might find collections like the Digital Video Archive in a museum or possibly in the library and the only time I ever had any type of access to a recording/sound studio was when my dad briefly managed one. And none of the aforementioned places would be aligned with a concert venue. Above all this, the Nerve Centre has the unique mission to bring all of these things together to anyone who wants to subscribe – from any background. At home this last point is guaranteed, for which I feel thoroughly blessed. It’s weird for me to feel surprised at an organization that does not discriminate. In my opinion, it’s important to recognize and encourage children’s open-mindedness, which the Nerve Centre does. As an adult with pretty a pretty solid base of ideas, I was astonished at how easy it was for us to start to try and read what background the people we have met come from even after one week in Northern Ireland. I can’t imagine how the people of the Nerve Centre do this after living their entire lives here. This brings me back to the quote I mentioned earlier. Bill Clinton’s call to action is not an easy thing to put into practice, especially in Derry. But the Nerve Centre has been doing so for the past two decades. PROPS!

Winding Road

We visited the Nerve Center as a group on Wednesday to see a presentation by one of its operators, John Peto. We watched their promotional video and a few of the projects created at the Nerve Center. Seeing the promo for a second time, after being immersed in the high energy of the Nerve Center for a few days, I finally acknowledged the right feeling I wanted to get out of my placement. We watched a student-created and produced film, Wasted, which deals with substance abuse and psychological affliction in Derry. A teenaged girl witnesses her mother falling back into alcoholism and then herself runs into a potentially deadly situation with drugs and alcohol.

Maybe I’m not out there changing people’s views and opening their eyes to the serious problems residing in this city, but I do see myself as more than just a beneficiary of this intense piece. When watching the scenes in this poignant film with landmarks I actually know and walk by everyday, like Derry’s walls, made me realize that I am now a part of this culture. If I should choose to make a difference in this promising place, I know exactly where to find the resources.

Twenty-one years ago musicians on both sides of the sectarian divided wanted to come together for the sake of music alone, so they created the Nerve Center. Initially they bonded to forget about hatred and segregation. But now, with movies like Wasted, the Nerve Center is bringing the hard issues to the forefront. Instead of just providing a diagnosis, the Nerve Center is granting young people the power to develop a cure. By giving the creators of the film an opportunity to develop a plot addressing the downsides of Derry life, they are not only spreading the message to other young people, but it can lead them away from that life as well. While the content of the movie was very important and needed to be addressed, the process alone of taking kids off the street and giving them another outlet is promising for Derry’s future. I strongly support this idea of giving people skills will help lead them away from a downward spiral towards sectarianism and towards a promising future.

The founder of the Playhouse theater in Derry spoke to us after John’s presentation. Pauline Ross graduated from college in her late thirties with two kids and eventually realized her dream of connecting the people of Northern Ireland through the arts. I was so inspired by her story, which Casey confirmed by telling me that she could see my face lit up during Pauline’s entire appearance. My favorite was when she said, “Artists will never start a war.” As an avid crafter, I would like to say that I’m part of that category. I love that organizations like the Playhouse and the Nerve Center give an alternative to conflict. I am proud to be linked to something that acts as an escape from the Troubles, even though you can also tackle conflict head on as well. Pauline mentioned a play that really dug into the issues of the Troubles, which could spark dialogue. It’s nice to be able to forget about the hostility of the sectarian conflict, but at some point it needs to be addressed in order to improve it.

I was intrigued by the Playhouse’s commitment to abating sectarian hostility through unbiased means. For this reason, Casey and I ventured over there to interview two of our fellow Bucknell students on Tuesday. Jameson and Christine work at the Playhouse, so we decided to record their impressions of their placement. We certainly had a rollicking good time going through the eccentricities of the interview process, but more than that, I started to understand further how important our two organizations are in providing alternatives to sectarian divisions. The Playhouse has moved to a temporary location while a huge renovation is carried out at their usual place on Artillery Street. This goes to show that the community is willing to support something that continues to fulfill its mission of creating a third party in the conflict. The current location is kind of a broken-down, vintage theatre just within the walls. Even though the physical aspects of the building were eery and covered in a layer of dust, I could sense auras of inspiration and optimism. Just by videotaping inside the walls of the Playhouse, I can spread its message and impact to so many places. My field placement at the Nerve Center has taught me this. The Nerve Center can change lives through the content of their projects, but also through the sheer process of escaping through developing technological skills.


The process of these two organizations, the Nerve Center and the Playhouse, reminds me of the experimental method. They both generated a hypothesis that they could improve the condition of the their country and developed a formula to enact it. Both have changed over their lifetime by testing and modifying what works and what does not. This analogy led me to a comparison between Northern Ireland’s history and the song “Winding Road” by Bonnie Somerville. I think the idea of looking towards new ways to escape pain, in this case the sectarian conflict, is embodied in the chorus (the music to my slideshow):

It’s a winding road / I’ve been walking for a long time / I still don’t know where it goes / It’s a long way home / I’ve been searching for a long time / I still have hope I’m gonna find my way home

The narrator clearly started off in a period of distress, which led her to search for a way home, probably a place with more tranquility than she feels now. For the past few centuries Northern Ireland has followed this winding road. Recently they have found ways to progress from the chaos of the past, but there is still no clear endpoint in sight. They are still looking and still hoping that the people of the country can find their way home.