Belfast Council has outlined how £600,000 from a UK government fund aimed at tackling racism and integration in the wake of the summer race riots is to be spent.
Elected representatives approved a plan put forward by City Hall officials at a recent Belfast City Council meeting after months of tweaking following the announcement by the Deputy Prime Angela Rayner that Belfast would receive money from the Community Recovery Fund - the only area outside England to do so.
The fund in Belfast will be spent on programmes promoting integration and fighting racism, with a particular stress on anti-muslim hatred, and will focus on four parts of the city that experienced riots, as well as giving an open call across the city, and spreading facts about migration through community groups and schools.
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Early in August, after an anti-immigration group and a larger anti-racist counter rally converged outside City Hall, numbers from the anti-immigration group broke away from the City Centre and moved into South Belfast, where individuals and businesses were attacked. The events followed a mass stabbing in which three children were killed in Southport in England.
Police managed to stop the far-right aggressors reaching the Belfast Islamic Centre on University Road but many were able to reach Botanic Avenue, Ormeau Road, and the Holyland, where there were violent scenes, businesses damaged and racist chanting.
Later a business on Sandy Row was burnt out in a racially motivated attack, and at least one person was attacked in a racially motivated hate crime in the area. Attacks and rioting continued for a number of nights in the Sandy Row area.
At the Belfast Council Strategic Policy and Resources Committee main monthly meeting in January, council officers outlined the final plan with a document showing the fund divided into eight blocks.
The largest block accounts for £330,000, directed towards community projects aimed towards reduction in anti-Muslim hate, and increased “integration, orientation, and inclusion”.
£160,000 will be focused on proposals from community organisations in four specified areas in Belfast which have been directly impacted by racist attacks - Sandy Row/Donegall Road, Woodvale, Connswater and Greater Falls. The council document states: “It should be noted that this fund does not support one-off events or festivals.”
The remaining £170,000 under this block will support projects led by constituted community organisations across Belfast up to a value of £20,000, through an open call, that support a “proactive approach to integration and inclusion” of the migrant population.
Other blocks include £35,000 aimed specifically towards a reduction in anti-Muslim hate, involving projects for teachers, youth practitioners and community leaders to work with young people and adults to “prevent the threats from new and evolving harmful ideologies, that sow division, and spread hate and intolerance”.
Another directs £30,000 to enable council owned community centres and eight independent community centres to “reduce the risk of further disorder in the future” by making “Centres of Sanctuary” to connect with asylum seekers, refugees and the BAME community.
£35,000 will go towards programmes that “develop a resource that clearly presents the facts in relation to migration, and the process of immigration”. £20,000 will go towards the 'Schools of Sanctuary' programme already up and running in the city.
£20,000 will go to restore the physical environment back to its original form pre–August Riots, and £20,000 will go towards 'drop-in clinics' in the areas where businesses have suffered in the context of hate crime and racist attacks.
Lastly, £40,000 will go towards a Wider University and Lower Ormeau Support Programme which will be designed for migrant support.
At the council's Strategic Policy and Resources Committee meeting, Sinn Féin’s Ciaran Beattie said: “The biggest problem we have in the city at the minute is there has been no investment in integration at all, none. We have dealt with the Syrian community, before that the Filipinos, Afghans etc, and there has been no integration of those people in society.
“I know people from Afghanistan living in the same street who don't even know their neighbour, who is also from the same country, from the same city, and they haven't even met them. There is a hell of a lot of work to do, but it is easy enough to do, it is just about programmes that have to be put in place.”
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