Street Pastors, St Patrick’s Day 2014, ‘Holyland’, Belfast …. 2,065 bottles and glasses removed from the streets!!! .... 19 Volunteers - from Ireland, England, Brazil, France, & New Zealand ..... 6 teams ... on the streets from 2pm to 11pm ..... read all about it ..... With streets names such as ‘Palestine Street, Cairo Street, Jerusalem Street, Carmel Street’ it’s not surprising this part of Belfast is called ‘The Holyland’. It is home to about 10,000 students, longer term residents plus Roma and Romanians. On St Patrick’s Day 4 years ago there was significant tension and riots and so every year since, there has been a lot of planning to helping St Patrick’s Day (or actually the entire weekend) pass off as peacefully as possible. Belfast Street Pastors actually launched on the streets 3 years ago on St Patrick’s Day and our involvement has been appreciated by the authorities, students, universities and residents. We have been involved in the joint planning sessions with other agencies. This year on St Patrick’s Day we were joined by some Newtownabbey Street Pastors with whom we do joint training and were able to have 6 teams serving. We were based at City Church which is right in the middle of the area and is used as a base for the Police and Council workers as well. The church had activities as well and also people praying throughout the day and night. The Police, Council, University Staff, Student Union Officials, Landlords, had all tried hard to warn students to leave the area, or behave, but many came back for the celebrations, including people who are not students. Drinking is not allowed on the streets, so parties happen in the tiny front ‘gardens’ or even on the top of the bay windows! Most of the celebrations are good natured, but sometimes it can get out of hand. Our strategy is to quickly point out that we are NOT police or council and we then get an amazing reaction – ‘why are you doing this when you’re not paid for it?’ We get alongside the students, take an interest in them and their studies, ask if they’ve been having a good night, and then they sometimes ask us if their music is too loud! One of the teams may have prevented a rape and we calmed some anti-social incidents. We had some good conversations with people who have given up on church, but not necessarily on God. It was a privilege to serve Belfast in this way on a special day.
Posted on: Tue, 18 Mar 2014 12:59:34 +0000
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