Newtownabbey residents travel around the world in five nights

The stories were presented by the housing group in partnership with CraicNI.

Each story came from a different country - Portugal, Poland, Japan, France and South Africa - and was told by award winning storyteller Liz Weir MBE.

Liz brought the stories to life with her own special storytelling magic and was joined each evening by a guest who also told the story in their country’s native language.

As well as the stories, young listeners were able to learn a little about each country’s culture.

The stories were aimed primarily at primary school children living in and around Clanmil’s shared neighbourhood developments - at Felden in Newtownabbey, in Belfast, Banbridge and Dundrum - but were available for everyone to enjoy on Clanmil’s Facebook page each night between September 14 and 18.

Tim O’Malley, Community Development Manager at Clanmil Housing said: “For Good Relations Week this year Clanmil brought the opportunity to celebrate diversity to your home.

“We are really excited to present five fabulous stories from around the world for families to enjoy and reflect upon.

“These tales really are the stuff of dreams. But as well as entertaining and delighting our young audience at bedtime, they also tell an important story about diversity.

“We hope the families who tuned in also enjoyed hearing about some of the different cultures that make Northern Ireland a truly multi-cultural place to live.”

Ana Semedo, who lives at Felden and who is one of the guest storytellers, has been listening in to the Facebook stories each evening with her daughter.

She said: “I’ve really loved being part of this project and being able to share a traditional Portuguese bedtime story as well as something of my culture.

“I tell my daughter Maya this story often and it’s a firm favourite with her. I’m hoping that other children listening all over Northern Ireland enjoy it just as much as she does.

“The stories have all been so different this week and Maya and I have loved hearing about each storyteller’s country.”

Good Relations Week 2020, which ran from Monday, September 14 to Monday, September 21, has gone digital this year due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.

This year’s theme is ‘Celebrating Our Journey, Embracing Our Future’, and Clanmil’s bedtime stories initiative was one of more than 150 online events taking place across Northern Ireland during the week.

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