Michelle and Jennifer's story – building brings unity

Since 1994, Habitat for Humanity has established itself in Belfast and throughout Northern Ireland not only as a house builder, but even more importantly as a peace-builder, interpreting a decent, affordable house not so much as an end in itself but as the means to a much larger end of unity and accord.

Never has that been better exemplified than in the experience of Michelle and Jennifer, Catholic and Protestant respectively. The two women, both Habitat homeowners, grew up amid the Troubles and have seen firsthand the hostility and violence that can so thoroughly infect a community."I decided I wasn't going to get caught up in all of that," Jennifer says, sitting on the sofa in Michelle's home in the staunchly Catholic neighbourhood of Ligoniel.

Michelle and Jennifer met on a Habitat build site in the Protestant neighbourhood of Ballysillan, a mere stone's throw from Ligoniel. They worked hand in hand then, and they walk, figuratively, hand in hand still. Each watches the other's children; they take vacations together-to Scotland last year-watch movies together. Even more revealing, perhaps, is that their young children look at one another not as Catholic or Protestant first, but as friend and neighbour.

"It's so important to take people as they come," says Michelle. "It doesn't matter to me who or what people are," Jennifer echoes. "A person can embrace an identity, but still think beyond the walls of a particular community."

Find out more about Habitat for Humanity's work in Northern Ireland