Select background

The Thin End of the Wedge is funded by the EU’s European Regional Development fund through the PEACE III Programme, managed by the Special EU Programmes Body. It is a groundbreaking multidiscipline approach to improving community relations and tackling sectarianism and racism through accredited learning, study visits, local workshops and community interaction at a local and regional level.



The project builds the capacity of individuals who have influence in the community to provide leadership in enabling the social integration of ethnic minorities within the community and consequently establish a proactive network of support for the most vulnerable.

The project will directly improve community relations between immigrants and tackle sectarianism by forging lasting links with local community activists, ex-prisoners, former paramilitaries and the Polish and other ethnic communities in the Northern Ireland and local Government Associations and universities in Poland.

The project will disseminate its learning, achievement and good practice on a pan-European level through its partnership with Non-Governmental Organisations and Jagiellonian University Krakow.


A multi layered accredited training programme dealing directly with the causes and effects of racism and sectarianism through understanding the history of the Holocaust and its causal roots.

As a result of increasing racial and existing sectarian tensions within working class areas in Northern Ireland, a specialist training and support company was approached to provide a programme to counteract these tensions for local residents focusing on young men and local civic leaders.
Transition Training has developed and delivered a successful and innovative course in association with the Lower Shankill Community Association and the Polish Association to deal directly with these issues focusing on the Holocaust as an example of racism taken to its extreme.

The course was developed by Transition and is supported by the National Jewish Memorial (USA) and Facing History and Ourselves.  The Group agreed an achievement plan that was independently monitored at three set stages.  The course also dealt directly with the causal issues behind sectarianism from a British/Irish perspective.