Last month I applied for and was chosen to participate in the Young Leaders Programme, organised by the Irish Institute of Boston College and funded by the U.S. embassy in Ireland. It is a 10-day programme and starts tomorrow the 16th October. 5 days will be spent in seminars and discussions with academics and political leaders mostly based in Boston College - a Jesuit founded University of about 15,000 undergrad and postgrad students. The next five days will be spent in Washington D.C. where the group will visit a number of governmental institutions and lobby groups around the city. The group that is partaking in this programme include 14 young political activists from the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland. It is my intention to document some of my experiences here in this Blog throughout the programme.
Among the academics from Boston College we will meet will be Professor Mark Landy, Faculty Chair at the Irish Institute, Tom Keady who is Vice-President of Governmental and Community Affairs, Alan Wolfe, Founding Director of the Boisi Center for Religion and American Public Life. In Boston we will also meet Judith Kurland who is currently the chief of staff for Boston Mayor Menino, Representative Peter J. Koutoujian (D) and Dr. Kerry Healey (R) who serves on the Mitt Romney for President campaign. Thomas P. O’Neill, III is chief executive officer of O’Neill
and Associates who are a top Boston Public Relations and lobbying firm. We will visit the headquarters of MassVOTE which is a non-partisan voting rights organization. They work with community-based nonprofit organisations to increase voter education and turnout across Massachusetts. The last stop in Boston will be at the Irish Immigration Centre which looks after the needs of the local Irish immigrant community, this will be hosted by Sister Lena Deevy.
A great opportunity will be extended to us on our arrival in the U.S. through a briefing that has been arranged for us in the U.S. State Department with officials in charge of Irish-U.S. relations, the Office of the Special Envoy for Northern Ireland and some discussion with officials in charge of U.S.-E.U. relations and lastly from members of the Bureau of Regional Political and Military Affairs.
We have a great opportunity to engage with a number of politicians in Washington including Senator Judd Gregg (R) who is New Hampshire Senator and chair of the Senate Budget committee. The following day we will meet Congressman Richard E. Neal (D) of Massachusetts who is, among other posts a member of the House Ways & Means committee.
Mike Franc Vice President of Government Relations at the very well-known research and lobbying think-tank the Heritage Foundation will outline how they see their role in the American political process. We will get a chance then to visit the Human Rights Campaign which is America’s largest civil rights organization working to achieve gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender equality. This was one of the organisations that I suggested when Boston College sought input on organisations participants would like to visit, naturally I'm very interested to see how the organisation carries out its work, especially in the context of the debate on Marriage equality in the U.S. and any forthcoming Partnership legislation here in Ireland.
Later that day we meet Christopher Ross, Director of National Affairs at Anheuser-Busch Companies, Inc. a company which handles just under half of all beer sales in the U.S. Out last engagement is with Dr. Pietro Nivola, Vice President and Director of the Governance Studies Program at the well-known Brookings Institution. This research body is highly prestigious and will be a though-provoking end to our time there.
I am very grateful to have this opportunity and would like to thank all those who have given of their time and indeed in the case of the U.S. State Department, their money, to enable this exchange.
If you have any questions, input or suggestions - please comment below and keep checking on here for updates (if you have the time and inclination of course!!)
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