alan's blog

Why Second life?

When I start to tell people about this project and I explain that it is happening in Second Life this Virtual World that exists in cyberspace I get a mixture of reactions. I sometime have to explain what Second Life is and from that I get comments such as 'what a fantastic idea' to the usual one of 'Ive got a real life I don't need a second life.' As always these give rise to questions I ask myself

Mainly, why am I doing it and why am I doing it in Second life?

Contested Spaces and Second Life

The main players have all gained access to the island owned by Co-operation Ireland and the first buildings that will make up the arena for the proposed game have been started.

The project will involve two teams from different sides of the Religious Divide in Northern Ireland playing a game against each other in a custom built arena on an Island in the Teen Grid of Second Life.

We are not unique

And we think it only happened to us.

Uniqueness

I suppose when you experience problems and adversity you almost always think that you are the only one it has happened to, a natural reaction. However later on you come to understand that you are not unique and that other people and regions have encountered similar ‘troubles’. This was brought home to us in Co-operation Ireland last week when we were involved in a “Legislative Study Tour” by five members of the Somaliland Government.

Conference over

The Mind the Gap conference is over and Barry and myself have returned to the normal day to day workings of Co-operation Ireland in the Belfast Office.

Conference Report Day 2

Day two of the conference 'Mind the Gap' is gone and we are preparing ourselves for the third and final day. Again there were a wide variety of sessions and topics some demonstrating good practice from around the world and others arguing the theoretical perspectives underlying youth work.

Conference Report Day 1

Day one of the conference'Mind the Gap' is now over and I must admit it went very well for the Co-operation Ireland contingent (Barry and me). We were first to present at the monrning session in the main lecture theatre. We spoke to a large group of practitioners and academics and were well received.

Delegates of the conference came from as far a field as China, North Carolina, Canada, Belgium, Holland, The Balkans, South Africa and the Republic of Ireland. There were even some from England!

Conference

Next week sees myself and Barry off to Glasgow to present two papers at the "Mind the Gap" conference at the University of Strathclyde.

This is a conference that we have presented at before. I believe it was two years ago and was where we first encountered the AWS (Army Welfare Services) in the form of Mr Andrew Simpson. From there we developed the FACE programme which has been running with the Services Families in Northern Ireland.

Co-operation Ireland - Morgan Stanley

The Co-operation Ireland – Morgan Stanley project ended last week. This project aimed at giving a group of young people from Northern Ireland, the Republic of Ireland and London an opportunity to engage in an event that could possibly have life-changing impacts.

Contested Spaces - Terraforming

The technical issues that had plagued us over the last few weeks are now resolved and we can begin work on creating the environment for the game which the two groups of young people will play.

At the moment it is a barren island on which we will 'build' our own environment to a set specification.

Co-operation Ireland - Morgan Stanley

January past I was in London at the BETT show and meeting a few people with respect to impending projects when I had a meeting with our CEO Peter Sheridan and our GB Executive Mike Murphy about fundraising and social media. At the end of the meeting they invited me to come with them to meet with some people from Morgan Stanley with whom they had made contact. These were Morgan Stanley employees who had an Irish connection and who wanted to help Co-operation Ireland.