Review of the Year 2014

News from Show Racism the Red Card

1. Review of the Year 2. Football Against Racism in Europe fortnight 3. Creative Competition 4. Training Evaluation 5. SRTRC Summer programme 6. Show Racism the Red Card Ambassadors programmeReview of the Year

We have had a lot of activity in 2014.  More schools and youth services have been involved in our Creative Competition, with 205 centres registering to participate.  We must be thankful to the FAI for helping with this project.  Every school/ service which submitted work received 2 free tickets for an Ireland soccer international.Our Summer programme involved as in previous years, an intercultural camp, but also involved targeting youth services with a development education programme.

This enabled us to impact with a much larger group of young people than previously.SRTRC played a leading role in the delivery of FARE (Football Against Racism in Europe) week activities and worked hard to ensure the successful impact of this work.  We were also delighted to announce results of an evaluation arising from our online training courses, which are part of a programme of anti racism training with those involved in football and education. The online course has proved to be a successful and innovative initiative with a lot of potential for development.

As we look to the new year, we hope to launch a new programme of SRTRC Ambassadors based around our relationship with sports stars and developing ambassador roles.  We are currently looking for funding for this work because we think it will significantly add to our impact.Finally, we end this introduction note with a mix of happy and sad news.  We congratulate Tomi Reichental who received the International Person of the Year award for 2014.  We are sad to hear that former SRTRC board member Brendan Archbold has passed on.  Both are inspiration to all of us and to those of us involved in anti-racism work in particular to carry on the message.

FARE fortnight October 9-23rd

FARE fortnight was marked at all levels of the game this year.  It is an important period of activity where all involved in football are invited to take action against racism.  The work of the FAI Development Officers is particularly worth reporting.In this two week period, they deliver Show Racism the Red Card workshops to over 100 schools. Another aspect of the SRTRC  intervention is our administration of the Grassroots FARE action.  30 clubs at grassroots level applied to SRTRC for resources to help their dissemination of the anti-racism message.  Otherwise, actions at SSE Airtricity games and involving the international squads took place to highlight the message.A full report is available at www.theredcard.ie/news 

Anti-Racism Creative Competition 2015

It looks likely that Creative Competition 2015 may well be bigger and possibly even better than all previous years.  With already 115 schools and youth services registered to participate, there is still plenty of time for many more to get involved.  Once again, we are grateful to the FAI for supporting this programme by offering 2 free tickets to any school/ youth service who submit entries for the competition.The entries submitted in previous years have been inspirational.  It is amazing what young people can achieve when given the opportunity.  What is so great about this programme, is that young people are tasked with using their creativity to promote anti-racism messages.  This is the winning entry from Castaheany Educate Together National School for 2014.   To get involved, Register here 

Training Evaluation

44% of those involved in football have witnessed racism in the game

In September 2013, we launched our online training course to complement our anti-racism training with those involved in football and also those involved in education.  As part of the training, participants are asked to complete an evaluation form at the conclusion of the course and also a learner statement. Significantly, 44% of those involved in football have witnessed racism in the game. Of those, 64% were not satisfied with the responses to racism.  It shows we have a lot of work to do.  However the feedback from both courses do show that participants felt very positively about the course and more confident in their ability to tackle racism.Here is a link to the full report 

SRTRC Summer Programme

Our Summer Programme engaged young people at six youth services in a programme of anti-racism and global education as well as football fun and concluding with our summer camp.This year’s Intercultural Summer Camp took place at the YMCA Greenhills venue in Newcastle, Co Down.  41 young people and 14 adult volunteers were involved.  The camp was the culmination of a programme of work we carried out over the summer with youth services.  It was funded by Irish Aid, Ireland Funds, Donegal Sports Partnership and Newtownabbey Borough Council.camp picAnti Racism Ambassadors

From our launch in 2006, we have developed and maintained a very positive working relationship with the players associations in GAA, Rugby and Soccer.  This project proposal will enable us to harness that relationship in a structured manner and have a sustained impact.  The project will be implemented with the assistance of our supporters and in particular the Professional Footballers Association Ireland and the Gaelic Players Association, both of whom are supportive of the project.  We are currently seeking support with launching this initiative.

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