Teenagers from Ardoyne and Shankill Road come together for clean-up at Twaddell Avenue with R City project in Belfast
Teenagers from the Ardoyne and Shankill Road areas have come together to do a clean-up on part of their community at Twaddell Avenue - a site once renowned for community tensions.
The work has been organised by good relations program R City, which was founded ten years ago by Shankill man Alan Waite and Thomas Turley from the Ardoyne.
This week the organisation facilitated ten youths from the Shankill and ten youths from the Ardoyne in A community clean up as part of a year-long project called, My Choice.
"The project is aimed at young lads who might be at risk of involvement in some of the interface issues in North Belfast," Alan told the News Letter.
It starts by focusing on what the young people, aged around 16, have in common and fully accepts their republican and loyalist identities and culture.
"We just ask that they be respectful of people who are different and focus more on relationships. And then those relationships turn into long lasting friendships. So we are creative in putting a bit of longevity to the program.
"We bring them together and work on a year-long program with them, and part of the program is doing community action projects.
"The aim is to showcase young people in a positive manner, when so often they can be labelled negatively in terms of interface violence, drugs and violence.
The youths decided that, because of the issue of drugs in the community, they noticed a major anti-drugs advert at the Ardoyne Roundabout had been overgrown with hedges and weeds and it had become very dirty.
So they planned over a few weeks to see what they could do to fix it and to see what tools they would need.
"Then on the final day they got started, pulling up weeds and spraying them, cutting back the hedges and powerhousing the surrounding area, and brushing up all the debris and giving it a full makeover. So now it actually looks like a brand new advert."
As part of the year-long programme, in October the youths will travel to South Africa where they will work in the most deprived communities with local police, authorities, local prisons and ex-gang members, where they will do a program focussing on how choices and decisions impact your life.
The location of the clean-up work this week, next to Twaddell Avenue, was the scene of significant tensions from 2013-16.
Loyalist protests began after a Parades Commission decision not to allow the return leg of an Orange parade to pass a section of Crumlin road in north Belfast.
The commission said Orangemen could walk on this stretch of road in the morning but not in the evening. The Grand Orange Lodge of Ireland called the decision "ludicrous" and damaging to community relations.
R City works with some 400 young people each week in schools and centres in the city, Alan said.
One of the accreditations they offered is called Leadership for life. This year for the first time it will be accredited by Queens University Belfast, with 43 young people due to ‘graduate’.
This year 43 young people will graduate from the programme with a level four certificate which is the equivalent of the first year of a degree, should any of them wish to progress down that route at a later date.