Judith Hill

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Journalist for Ulster Television, story-teller and youth worker from Belfast; Judith is passionate about hope and being able to communicate that through speech, stories and actions. She loves hanging out with amazing young people, spending time with friends, discovering new music acts, watching inspiring movies, writing and shopping.

Web: www.tellitincolour.com/

My Articles

Tell it in colour

Judith Hill
Monday 17th January 2011

Tell it in colour Image One

Belfast by Mr Bultitude

Stories of war: they’ve been our heritage in Northern Ireland. They’ve shaped our collective conscience. And these stories needed to be told.

Bombs decimated communities, endless murders made even the word ‘why’ written on the floral tributes seem like a waste of letters.  These dark acts needed to be charted, explored, condemned…
 
But what of the stories of hope? How have they impacted our heritage, our collective conscience? I believe these stories also need to be told.

  • It was during the deepest darkest days of the Troubles; despair and division were plentiful and yet in a house in west Belfast an ex IRA leader and ex loyalist head were meeting… meeting to pray.

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  • It was a shooting which shocked us out of our peaceful apathy; two young guys collecting their Saturday night pizzas before embarking on a dangerous mission to Afghanistan.  They never got to sample their pizzas or that danger. They were gunned down at the gates of their army barracks in Antrim. And yet a bunch of young people from that town refused to let Antrim be labelled. They united in repulsion, they chose to act in love, writing sympathy cards and sending them to the soldiers’ families.

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    We need to hear these sorts of stories. We need to know that hope has actually always been at work: We’ve maybe just failed in publicising it.
     
    I love this quote from Jesus:

    “You’re here to be light, bringing out the God colours in the world. God is not a secret to be kept. We’re going public with this, as public as a city on a hill. If I make you light-bearers, you don’t think I’m going to hide you under a bucket, do you? I’m putting you on a light stand. Now that I’ve put you there on a hilltop, on a light stand - shine!” (Matt 5 – The Message)

     
    And this, in essence, is the heartbeat of Tell It In Colour.
       
    I’d love you to meet Margaret from Poleglass. Margaret is ‘The Good News Lady’ to me. I absolutely love her story. She arrived here in 1987 from England and was convinced that this place wasn’t as bad as had been portrayed to her. So for over 20 years now she has been faithfully cutting out and collating any good news stories she sees in the local papers.  She then compiles little ‘good news’ booklets and sends them to friends around the world. What a legend. What a voice of hope.
     
    Stories of hope like ‘The Good News Lady’ can be found on our website www.tellitincolour.com. As well as showcasing these stories online we’ve also hosted a series of storytelling nights in coffee shops and other venues across Belfast where various contributors speak out these stories. A recent exciting development has been the expansion of Tell It In Colour to incorporate artists, photographers and musicians who are keen to communicate hope through each of these creative strands.
     
    Our dream is that these hope stories could spark a cultural revolution here; that they would call out the best in communities - not the worst - and inspire people to live out their own stories of hope. Our prayer is that these stories, emanating from hopeful lives, will reach into the darkest corners of our land, colour the very fabric of Northern Irish society and ultimately showcase our colourful Creator God.

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