The Ministers made their remarks at the recent Challenge for Change conference in Belfast which considered interfaces, barriers and the Legacy of Segregation.
Following on from a series of important public consultations on the issue of interfaces, the conference was organised to give communities, on the ground, the opportunity to explore their role in any future interface process and to seek responses to the Interface Working Group’s report “Towards Sustainable Security - Interfaces Barriers and the Legacy of Segregation in Belfast”.
Speaking at the conference Minister Kelly said: “In order to move our society forward, we all must use imagination and be willing to take some risks. We cannot simply continue to accept that the limitations of the past will limit the opportunities of the future.
“Safety and trust must be developed before any radical changes can take place. People want and need to feel ‘safe’ within their own homes and within their own neighbourhoods.
“No one here wants peace walls and interfaces to remain forever but when it comes to transforming interface communities and removing peace walls, we must move forward at a pace dictated by the communities involved.”
Minister Donaldson said: “Working with some of the most disadvantaged communities, working on building relationships between the people here, and ensuring the end of segregation and division is essential to securing our longer term peace.
“We all look forward to a future without barriers where society is characterised by respect, tolerance and interdependence and the blights of sectarianism and racism are things of the past.”
Notes to Editors:
- The conference and public consultation events were organised by the Community Relations Council on behalf of the Interface Working Group, an inter-agency group of primarily public organisations and key interface agencies.
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