RACE: Right Attitude Creates Equality

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Department of Social Protection

The Department of Social Protection is a longstanding partner to YSI investing in the learning and engagement of young people in combatting poverty and disadvantage in Ireland. It provides the Making our Country more Inclusive and Poverty Free Award each year.

RACE: Right Attitude Creates Equality

Largy College, Clones, Co. Monaghan.

The Social Issue:

The aim of the students who took part in this project was to raise awareness about the issue of racism and race based inequality, both globally and in Ireland. By running an education campaign to inform and raise awareness, the team set out to help people understand what racism means so that they have the knowledge to recognise racist speech and behaviour and to call it out. 

The Idea:

The main goal of this project was to promote inclusion and equality by reinforcing the message that there is only one race, the human race. This builds on the message of UN Sustainable Development Goal 16: Promote sustainable peaceful and inclusive societies for sustainable development, provide access to justice for all and build effective, accountable and inclusive institutions at all levels.

Through research, the team found that racism in Ireland presents itself in many forms, some of which is influenced by global racism, with some more specific to an Irish context. Key dimensions of racism in Ireland include racism that is; anti-black, anti-Traveller, anti-Roma, anti-Muslim (Islamophobia), anti-Jewish (Antisemitism), anti-migrant (xenophopia) and gendered racism (when women from minority groups are targeted for particular hostility).

The students ran several fundraisers for asylum seekers in the local Direct Provision Centre. As well as starting a podcast series called ‘Voices from a Diverse Ireland’, the team also gathered lots of recipes and stories from a diverse range of people in their community and beyond into a book. This book is called ‘A Taste of Humanity’, and it focuses on the enjoyment of good food as a unifying force for people while aiming to give a flavour of all the various families and people that make up the community and country.

It was hard to hear first-hand people’s experience of racism in our midst

The Impact:

Thanks to the efforts of this team, a lot of discussion happened around language and how ignoring or playing down certain types of language can give it more power. Many students recognise now that their friends of varying heritage are rarely asked about their experiences in school. Drawing attention to this issue earned the team the YSI Make Our World Fair & Just Challenge Award 2021. The student’s podcast generated a lot of interest and conversation around race and racism in Ireland. Monaghan County Council has agreed in principle to print the ‘A Taste of Humanity’ book, and following on from this project the team hopes to organise a ‘Taste Off’ and use many of the recipes donated to the book to continue to raise money for people in Direct Provision.