Our vision for peace (From Warrington Guardian)

Our vision for peace

THE PLANS for Warrington's international peace centre and its pioneering partnership with a national charity have been exclusively revealed to the GUARDIAN.

The centre is the vision of the Tim Parry Johnathan Ball Trust which was set up in the wake of Bridge Street bombing. The Trust has now been joined by the NSPCC in a bid to create a unique project which it is hoped will be repeated across the country. Warrington Youth Club is also re-locating to the site, forging a partnership for the new Millennium.

NSPCC Northwest regional director Karen Rigby said: "We were already looking at creating a children's centre and when we found out that the Tim Parry Johnathan Ball Trust were building a peace centre we felt that we could work together.

"This is a definite partnership. We will be carrying out a lot of therapeutic work, something we will be able to work together on. We are very excited by the plans."

Warrington will be the flagship of a network of children's centres across the country, with links into schools and children's groups.

"The activities that go on will be shared," said Karen, "and the emphasis is on conciliation.

"We want to help disaffected young people, most of whom are on the child protection register, who are excluded from school. NSPCC research has shown that only one third of children who are being abused are saying so. We want to reach the other two thirds. This is going to be a young people's centre and we are looking at ways of accessing children's views."

The state-of-the-art building includes a residential wing which will house children from Ireland and further afield who will visit the town on the Trust's exchange trips. The NSPCC will also have the option to use these rooms for

Converted for the new archive on 13 March 2001. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.