Get involved
Delaware families with a teen aged 14–16: host a teen from Portadown next July.
Your teen is matched with a Northern Irish teen of the same age and gender, and the two go through the four-week program together.
Every host household completes an application, a conversation with a coordinator, and the required background checks. Matching happens in the spring.
Delaware teens: apply to spend July 2027 alongside a teen from Northern Ireland.
Delaware participants complete their own application alongside their family’s host application.
The month brings service hours, leadership experience, and friendships that last well beyond July.
Wilmington Friends School · Free and open to the public.
Author Dr. Forest Isaac Jones discusses his book, Good Trouble, which explores the connections between the American Civil Rights Movement and the Civil Rights Movement in Northern Ireland.
The evening will focus on the shared history of these movements and their continued relevance to UPD’s mission of promoting peace, understanding, and reconciliation.
The violence ended in 1998. The division didn’t — most children in Northern Ireland still grow up in separate schools and neighborhoods.
We hope you’ll join us, reconnect with old friends, and perhaps introduce someone new to UPD. Please help us spread the word! — Alex Insel, Executive Director
Wilmington, Delaware · Since 1976
Twelve teens from Portadown, Northern Ireland — drawn in equal number from both of its divided communities — each paired with a Delaware teen the same age and welcomed into that family's home for four weeks. Twelve households across Delaware, one matched pair in each. That's the whole program, and it doesn't run without host families.
2027 — Host family applications open right now
Why this matters
Northern Ireland has been at peace since 1998, but its communities are still largely divided. Most children there still attend schools and grow up on streets that are almost entirely Catholic or almost entirely Protestant — a teenager can turn sixteen without ever having a real conversation with someone from the other side.
For one month, a Delaware home is where that changes. Your family is the place two kids from a divided town learn to trust each other — and your own teen comes home from the month changed too.
Fifty years in, it still only happens if Delaware families say yes. Read our story →
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