February Newsletter

It has been a busy start to the year for us with an increased profile of activity promised and hopefully an increased impact.
Creative Competition
Our flagship project ‘Anti Racism Creative Competition’ is set to be a huge success once again.  At this stage, we have 115 schools and youth services from 24/ 26 counties and also 1 school from Co Tyrone participating.  We are excited in advance of the March 9th deadline and look forward to the showcase exhibition at the AVIVA stadium where President of Ireland Michael D Higgins will give an opening speech.
Go to our website and get your school/ youth service registered to participate now.  Be in with a chance to win fantastic prizes for your school / youth service and the chance to talk to the president about your work.
We are hoping to host a number of regional presentations involving schools and youth services who participated.
Education work
We have delivered workshops in 20 schools since the start of January. These include 6 schools as part of a pilot programme with the Integration Centre of Ireland, which is an Intercultural and Anti-Racism learning programme for transition years.  We also visited schools with UCD FC, where we delivered the education workshop alongside their coaching programme.
Media Profile
We have had a number of media interviews and are making efforts to keep a log of where we have profile.  We have been featured on a number of radio stations including Midwest, Beat FM in the Southeast, Ocean FM in the Northwest as well as Dublin City FM and Sunshine radio and also 4fm.
Intercultural Summer Camp 2012
We are also beginning preparations for Camp 2012 and for it to be held once again in the beautiful and perfect location of Ghleann Cholmcille, Co Donegal.  In responding to feedback of participants, we are extending the camp by one day so that the return day will be Sunday 8th July, rather than the Saturday.
Volunteer Interest in Show Racism the Red Card
We put out a call for Volunteer Applications to get involved in Show Racism the Red Card and are delighted with the feedback.  By way of follow up, we are hosting a Volunteer Briefing on our volunteer opportunities next week.  We would encourage people to use our forms as happily there is so much interest, which makes administration difficult, therefore completion of our forms is very helpful – seewww.theredcard.ie/volunteer.php
We are hosting a Volunteer Briefing on Monday 20th February, 6:30pm at Carmichael Centre for Voluntary Groups, North Brunswick Street, Dublin 7
Volunteer Opportunities
International Conference of Show Racism the Red Card
We are delighted to host an international conference at Marino Institute of Education on 16-20th April.  It is funded by EU Youth In Action Seminar programme funds.  The conference will be a great exchange of best practice in promoting anti-racism education and intercultural activities.  We have participants travelling from similar projects in UK, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Denmark, Germany and Romania.  We have had interest (but are not funded for ) from orgnaisations using sport to promote anti-racism in Israel, Serbia, Croatia, Macedonia and Montenegro.  It would be hugely significant for Ireland to host such a conference just prior to EURO 2012 with such countries represented.  If you know of some way we can include these partipants, please get in contact.info@theredcard.ie
Due to interest, we are going to set up a booking page for the conference on our website – so watch this space
Meet the Teachers of the Future
We have also been delighted to take the opportunity to host stands for Teachers in Training at Fayres at the following colleges-
Marino Institute of Education
St Patricks College of Education
Froebal College of Education
Ireland Fans Embassy at EURO2012
We have also been invited by Football Supporters Europe to organise a Fans Embassy for travelling Irish supporters who will descend on Poznan and Gdansk.  The idea of the embassies was in response to prejudices and resulting actions affecting football supporters over the last 20 years.
SRTRC Co-ordinator Garrett Mullan and volunteer Conor Cullen took a visit in temperatures of -20c to both Polish host cities last week.  We had the opportunity to check out the facilities and preparations in advance of Euro2012.  The good news is all host cities will have fans zones where giant screens in the city centres will show the matches, so you can take in the EURO 2012 atmosphere without needing a ticket.  However it is expected that Italy and Spain will only bring 4,000 supporters each, thereby freeing up tickets.
Check out the Polish Guide and Pass where you can get all the information you need.

 

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