Case Study – Daggers Against Racism
Mike O’Hanlon, Diversity Programme Manager at Redbridge Council contacted Show Racism the Red Card following at educational event at Dagenham and Redbridge FC in January:
“I just wanted to say how well the event went and great credit to the whole team.
Jo and Atta were fantastic both in the workshop and in the plenary session and are a real asset to the delivery of the programme.
Laura Greason, Gurdeep Singh Jutte from the Roma Support Group and Vasile Calin a year 8 Roma pupil from Mayfield School and our very own Sue Mutter from our Learning and School Improvement team ran an excellent Gypsy Roma Traveller session, as well as providing a great contribution to the Question Time panel. A special mention I think must go to Vasile who sat on the panel and very confidently and candidly talked about his experience in front of so many people.
Luther Blissett was an absolute star and gave the event a real sense of status and connection to the wider football world and the national energy to combat racism, not just from his presence but in the way he talked passionately about the issues, his experiences and understanding of racism and advice to the young people
The Daggers team came up trumps…a wonderfully entertaining ground tour by Teresa Parish, the Club Community Liaison Officer and her coordination of the behind the scenes preparation from room preparation and ICT to arranging the attendance of the players really made the day go well. The contributions of players Sam Williams, Kevin Maher and Exodus Geohaghon were excellent and showed them to be true role models and ambassadors for the sport. Exodus’s experiences in particular brought home how real and current the issues still remain.
Steve Thompson Daggers MD was excellent as always, rounding off a panel session in a most eloguent way, bring the focus back to the positive work of Red Card.
Councillor Prince has said, “The Council recognises the excellent work that the charity does and fully supports the campaign. The use of professional footballers as anti-racist role models has proven extremely popular in the Borough and it’s great that pupils are given the opportunity to team up with footballers to learn valuable lessons about combating racism”.
I have been on a number of these days at some of the biggest clubs in the Premier League, but I have got to say that this was the best yet and to top it off I received the email below, which was very touching.
Saminar Jaffar, Deputy Head Teacher, wrote “Thank you for the fantastic event yesterday ‘Show Racism the Red Card’. It was well organised and the children got so much out of it. Some of ours have described it as ‘the best day of their life!’ As well as the fun element of it they gained an insight into a subject that they may have to deal with in one way or another. ”
Show Racism the Red Card thanks everyone who was involved in making this event such a success. Thank you to Mike and Saminar for their kind words.
