Happy New Year to all my dear friends who are from all over the world. Thank you for the incredible support and love which has touched me deeply and empowered me to do more in the world to help create peace. It has been a phenomenal year in which I have been blessed to work with many young people in schools, linked with amazing people in Northern Ireland, spoken at a world peace conference in south Korea, and so much…
November 2019. To create the marathon text of TWENTY FOUR HOURS OF PEACE, writer Neil Bartlett spent nearly six months travelling across the UK and beyond, meeting one hundred remarkable individuals who work for peace to create a Remembrance Sunday act of witness to their work. Jo Berry and Pat Magee were among the 100 peace-workers involved in ’24 Hours of Peace’. Broadcast live on 10 November 2019, you can listen to the Jo and Pat’s contribution here: https://www.mixcloud.com/Resonance/24-hours-of-peace-e7-pat-mag/ For…
Thirty five years ago, a bomb exploded in a Brighton hotel. Jo Berry’s father was killed and Jo’s life was changed. She was 27 when the bomb went off and she vowed to bring something positive out of the atrocity. Thirty five years later Jo’s commitment to work building bridges for peace is as strong as ever. Currently we have some funding for Jo to work with under 16’s in a few schools in the East End of London. Jo…
Welcome to my first newsletter! After what I know is a long time since the last one, from now on we will be sending them out every two months with our and related news. So please encourage your friends and colleagues to subscribe on our website. Of course, if you don’t want to receive it, there is an UNsubscribe link and the bottom. 35th Anniversary “Last weekend was the 35th anniversary of the Brighton Bomb that changed my life. I…
12 October 2019 On the 35th anniversary of the IRA bomb at the Grand Brighton Hotel in Brighton that killed her father, Jo Berry reflects on the impact that it has had on her and the subsequent work she has done for reconciliation. “I was 27 and vowed to bring something positive out of the atrocity. That never ends, and today I renew my commitment to be bolder in my peace-work for Building Bridges for Peace, be more courageous in…
The Building a Stronger Britain Together (BSBT) programme supports civil society and community organisations who work to create more resilient communities, stand up to extremism in all its forms and offer vulnerable individuals a positive alternative, regardless of race, faith, sexuality, age and gender. The programme allows organisations that share these aims to bid for in-kind support and grant funding for specific programmes that deliver goals set out in the Counter Extremism Strategy. Building Bridges were successful in their bid…
In September 2019 Jo went back for a third time to Sacred Heart school in Liverpool. She spent a day with the first year of six form and another day with the second year. After starting with her story, she then asked them to look at themes throughout the day in small groups. The areas they covered were, forgiveness, media, their anger and sense of injustice and questions such as what is a terrorist. In the afternoon they worked on…
26 May 2019 Hundreds of people took park in three-day walk in memory of murdered journalist Lyra McKee. Lyra was shot dead by a dissident republican group, the New IRA. The 70 mile walk from Belfast to Derry took place five weeks after the journalist was murdered. Jo Berry was among the walkers. On the flight I was remembering my first moment landing in Belfast in 1985, when I saw British tanks out of the aircraft window and was stopped…