Cork Migrant Centre to hold anti-racism summit early next year 

Cork Migrant Centre will hold an “epic” anti-racist summit in Cork early next year, led by young people and aimed at making Cork the first anti-racist county in Ireland.

The Cork Migrant Centre has recently received over €18,000 from the government’s International Protection Integration Fund, to support an anti-racist summit in Cork City Hall in February, which will be led by young people in Cork Migrant Centre’s Youth Initiative Against Racism (CMCYIAR).CMCYIAR.

Young people involved in CMCYIAR held an anti-racism webinar in June 2020, where attendees such as City and County Council Mayors, Tusla, Cork Chamber of Commerce, the Irish Principals Network (IPPN) and Gardai were challenged to implement changes to counter racism in organisations and institutions they engage with.

The summit will be an opportunity to invite back policymakers to account for the actions their organizations have taken since then.

The summit will also feature distinguished guest speakers and discussions to highlight the gaps and opportunities in tackling racism both individual and structural.

It will focus on providing practical best practice guidance and toolkits for Cork businesses and entities to tackle racism.

Programme Coordinator at Cork Migrant Centre, Dr Naomi Masheti, said that the aim of the summit is to put conversations about diversity and anti-racism into practice.

“A lot of corporations have social corporate responsibility and a diversity agenda, but we haven’t really thought about what that looks like in practice. We have brought it to a point where it's in our books, but the next thing is putting our heads together and thinking, how do we do it?” she said.

Cork Migrant Centre is collaborating on the summit with UK charity Anti Racist Cumbria, which is working to make Cumbria the first actively anti-racist county in the UK and is holding its second annual anti-racist summit later this week.