Pictures: Cork’s first anti-racism summit gets its launch at City Hall

CORK’S first anti-racist summit was launched on Wednesday in Cork City Hall, as a number of groups came together to combat racism.

The Cork Migrant Centre’s (CMC) Youth Initiative Against Racism has launched an anti-racism youth-led summit in collaboration with Children and Young People Services Committee (CYPSC) Anti-Racist Subgroup and The Traveller Visibility Group (TVG).

The summit has been predominantly organised by young people involved in the Cork Migrant Centre, Children and Young People Services Committee, and The Traveller Visibility Group, who have invited policy-makers, politicians, and organisations to engage in a dialogue about the impacts of racism, and to be part of the conversation for tackling racism in Cork and Ireland.

The aim of the summit is to bring together people from all walks of life, including front-line service providers, service users, policymakers, and politicians, to have a conversation about positive change.

The young organisers will not only share their experiences of racism through the creative medium of music, spoken word, and drama but will also facilitate shared discussions on how to collaborate on strategies for creating an anti-racist society.

Programme Coordinator Dr Naomi Masheti said the summit is a follow-up on from a webinar led by CMC’s Youth Initiative Against Racism in collaboration with CYPSC in 2020 in the wake of the Black Lives Matter Movement and the murder of George Floyd.

It was created to channel and amplify the voices of young people with lived experiences of racism, sharing their experiences in their own words, and raising awareness amongst policymakers and service providers.

Following the webinar, CYPSC set up an Anti-Racist Subgroup with CMC. The TVG then joined, and the groups have continued to collaborate with a number of statutory, community and voluntary agencies working and learning together, to raise awareness of different forms of racism, its impact on children and to consider actions and the need for allyship for tackling racism.

“It is really important to have action because you can talk but then you need the call to action of what can we actually do,” explained Dr Masheti.

“It’s about our heart and also our pain but it is also a message of hope. It’s about how we use our hearts to make the future better. We see young people really take action and lead the movements, such as climate justice and Black Lives Matter,” she added. “Creating that space, particularly now when you see an increase in far-right activism, is important.”

Dr Masheti explained the summit comes during an increase in far right rhetoric and movements, culminating in protests towards migrants and those living in Direct Provision.

“It’s time to say we are here too,” she said. “We share this space. It’s our space too. You can deny us, but it’s our space so we are claiming it. We want to share the space. There is enough there for us. It’s our shared humanity,” she added.

“Ethnic minorities are minorities, and minorities are not going to make a great change — so for change to happen we need the majority as well so this call is really a call of allyship.”

There are approximately 42 groups across Cork involved in the summit, which Dr Masheti said shows that it is “not a question of being black, white or brown, but a question of social justice, about right and wrong and, at the end of the day, about the shared space and shared humanity”.

The summit will be hosted at the City Hall with the Lord Mayor on May 26 from 1pm to 6pm.