TOWNSEND Enterprise Park at the bottom of the Falls and Shankill have launched a project with their relatively new neighbours, the Ulster Orchestra, who have taken over Townsend Street Presbyterian church.

The church was saved from demolition when the Westlink was being built by a change of plans. They have had a number of outreach events and I dandered over to one in New Life City Church, the large church in an industrial hangar just off Northumberland Street, which has the largest congregation of all of the churches on the Shankill.

At the outreach session we watched a video of archive footage of Townsend Street. I was very aware that when I trundled up the Falls to go for an interview in the Enterprise Centre in 1994 to be a participant on an IFI Wider Horizons project for young people to set up in business, my knowledge of what had happened on the street was limited. The army were still at the top of Divis Flats, stone-throwing was a daily occurrence, but the participation on that cross-community, cross-border programme changed the trajectory of my life.

The IRA ceasefire happened while I was on the programme and led to me spending seven years setting up and running cross-border, cross-community development programmes from Townsend Street, leading people into full- or part-time work, education or self-employment, at one point with a cross-border women's network of over 120 women and with an organisation in Dundalk.

We would have visits from politicians and the great and the good: Neil Kinnock, Baroness Denton, the US Senate, the European Union, Australian MPs – you name it, they would call in, feeling perhaps they had done the Falls and the Shankill in one whistlestop swoop.

But why am I talking about this? Well, Townsend Street are looking for your stories about it – any connection to it, your family or community. They have writers working out in the community collecting stories and all the stories will be used as inspiration for the Ulster Orchestra to commission three new works which will be played by the orchestra on the street.

On the International Day of Peace, September 21, 2024, the whole street will be transformed. Details will emerge as time goes on and it's hoped that this focus on the street will help bring it into the consciousness of the city – a place so near the city centre, yet oddly apart, but off by peace gates.

If you're interested in finding out more, email townsend2024@ulsterorchestra.com and  connect to the project. Further details are also on www.ulsterorchestra.org.uk/townsend 

Sinn Féin Lord Mayor Ryan  Murphy, on launching Belfast 2024 at 2 Royal Avenue, said his favourite project was that of www.pssquared.org and the Waterworks 10,000 Boats, which will happen in August. Ryan let the crowd know that he loved a good raft race but has not yet won one.

Workshops for boat making of every kind have started and as I caught up with the team running the programme they told me 50 have been made so far, so there is still a long way to go. It's great to see this programme finally launch on an unsuspecting public. Some projects will work better than others and some will morph into something else, but each one has potential.