Actor Liam Neeson is leading a campaign to unite Northern Irish school children from Protestant and Catholic backgrounds, who are traditionally taught separately.
93 per cent of children in Northern Ireland are taught at schools that are predominantly Protestant or Catholic. Just 7 per cent of schoolchildren – about 22,000 – are taught in integrated schools, as BBC News reports.
"As Northern Ireland moves forward from division, who do we look to for a future we can share?" said Neeson, 64, in a video released yesterday, by the Integrated Education Fund.
"We look to our children for the future, so why do we continue to educate them apart: different religions, different backgrounds, different schools?" he says.
"There is another way," he adds.
"Protestants and Catholics, other beliefs and none, learning and working together every day."
The actor urges parents to further the cause of school integration by registering their support on the Integrate My School website. An integrated school needs to attract at least 30 per cent of its students from their community's minority area.
Some schools are not officially integrated but utilise "shared education" programmes, where children from different schools work in joint classes and projects. Complete, formal integration requires a ballot of the school's parents to determine if they favour integration or not.
Neeson was raised as a Roman Catholic, but grew up in a predominantly Protestant town. He plays a Jesuit priest in the recent Martin Scorsese film 'Silence'. Speaking recently about the film and his own faith, he said: "God is love, love is God."
"Together we can build a better society for everyone," Neeson says in the video.
"Most people agree that educating children together is a better way forward for our society - it's time to turn our aspiration into reality."
