Dagenham & Redbridge FC
Daggers and Redbridge Council host event with SRtRC
Show Racism the Red Card returned to the London Borough of Barking & Dagenham Stadium for an event organised in partnership with London Borough of Redbridge Council and Dagenham & Redbridge FC Football in the Community, for young people from Redbridge Borough Primary Schools.
Over 100 Year 5&6 pupils were able to come to the full day event which in the morning included a carousel of workshops delivered by SRtRC, Redbridge Traveller Service with the Roma Support Group and Dagenham & Redbridge FITC.
The young people took part in some activities that looked at stereotypes, a definition of racism and terminology with SRtRC, Sue Mutter Redbridge Traveller Education Coordinator and Laura Greason, Education Worker with the Roma Support Group ran some activities that looked at the experiences of Gypsy, Roma & Travellers locally and racism faced by people from those communities. Sue and Laura were joined by Vasile Calin, a Romanian Roma Year 8 pupil from Mayfield High School. Vasile spoke powerfully about his experiences. Dagenham & Redbridge FITC were able to organise a behind the scenes ground tour as the third workshop.
After the workshops in the morning, the audience saw a screening of the Sticks and Stones DVD which features GRT young people talking about name-calling, followed by the Show Racism the Red Card DVD.
The Question & Answer session which followed the films was excellent. On the panel were 3 players from Dagenham & Redbridge FC, Exodus Geohaghon, Sam Williams and Kevin Maher, Dagenham & Redbridge FC Chief Executive Stephen Thompson, former professional footballer and current SRtRC coach Luther Blissett, Leader of Redbridge Council Cllr. Keith Prince, Laura Greason and Gurdeep Singh Jutte from the Roma Support Group and Vasile Calin.
There were some brilliant questions and D&RFC provided three pairs of match tickets for the panel’s favourite questions. All of the young people in attendance will be able to come to the D&RFC anti-racism game in March for just 50p. The anti-racism home game has become an annual fixture for the Daggers and is a great way of publicly demonstrating the club’s support.
SRtRC would like to thank Dagenham & Redbridge FC for hosting the event. Thanks also to the Premier League / PFA Community Trust and Redbridge Council for their sponsorhip of this event. This was the third event in a programme of work sponsored by the Premier League / PFA Community Trust, you can see more dates in our forthcoming events section. Redbridge Council sponsored this event and the production of the SRtRC / Dagenham & Redbridge poster.
Big thanks to Teresa Parish from D&RFC FITC and Mike O’Hanlon of Redbridge Council for all of their help in organising the day. Thanks to Sue Mutter, Laura Greason, Gurdeep Singh Jutte, Vasile Calin, Cllr Keith Prince, Stephen Thompson, Exodus Geohaghon, Sam Williams, Kevin Mayer and Luther Blissett for taking part in the event. We look forward to working with the club again in the future.
Cllr. Keith Prince’s blog about the day can be read here