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Unique EU funded Partnership Project Formed to
Fight Racism in the Community Launched by Nigel
Dodds at Stormont Today
The innovative EU funded Thin End of the Wedge Project was launched today, the 1st of April in the Long Gallery at Stormont by Nigel Dodds OBE MP MLA.
The totally unique project will be delivered by the charity Forward Learning and has received approximately £1.5 million worth of support under the PEACE III Programme, managed by the Special EU Programmes Body.
It will see over 500 community activists from across Northern Ireland take part in a unique learning and community inclusion experience that aims to positively tackle potential sectarian and racist attitudes within the community.
The projects partners include City & Guilds, Jagiellonian University, historical associations, community groups, the Polish Association, specialised Holocaust training providers and the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum, Oświęcim.
Groups taking part will undertake accredited training and qualification through an internationally recognised awarding body City & Guilds before undertaking a cross cultural study visit to Krakow and the death camp complex at Auschwitz-Birkenau.
Thin End of the Wedge has been successfully piloted in areas such as South Belfast over the past 18
months including cross cultural visits to Poland and multicultural inclusion activities in Northern Ireland.
Specialist contemporary learning and development units including personal development have been
developed to implement the aims and objectives of the project within the community today and the
project has a full waiting list of groups waiting to take part and become proactive in fighting against
sectarian and racist influences both from inside and outside the community today.
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Nigel Dodds MP MLA commented:
“The amazing Thin End of the Wedge project is designed to tackle one of the most important
issues in our society today. Racism has led to the destruction of millions of lives and scarred
tens of millions of others. This represents a unique coming together of people in Northern
Ireland and in Poland, which suffered so much in the Holocaust, to identify the roots of racism
today and learn the lessons of the past. I am delighted that the project has received so much
recognition and support. It will play an extremely important role in our attempts to stop the
evil of racism.”
Project Developer and Consultant Francis Higgins stated;
“This project is one of a kind not only in Northern Ireland but throughout the European Union.
Not only in its use of accredited training on the Holocaust as an abject lesson on the evils of
racism but also in its teaching strategy of putting the Genocide in the context of its time and
relating the potential of sectarianism and racism that lies deep within the psyche of humanity
itself. This project exposes that trait and teaches people not only how to recognise racist and
sectarian beliefs but how to stop such attitudes whenever and wherever they exist.”
Colm Davis Chairman of Forward Learning said:
‘Although this is a unique and dynamic project we are confident it will help to bring the people
of N.I into a new depth and understanding of cultural toleration and diversity. The ‘model’ or
delivery challenges the participants to engage in real dialogue and collaborative working
aimed at eliminating racism and sectarianism within the areas in which they are expected to
work and live in! The real outcome for NI will be a new enhanced and deeper form of
community Integration which crosses religious and cultural boundaries and adds new and
deeper meaning to the concept of a shared future’.
Welcoming the initiative Howard Keery, Director of the Joint Technical Secretariat within the SEUPB said:
“This EU supported project has been specifically designed to challenge many of the underlying
causes of religious and ethnic intolerance that exists within our society. It will accomplish this
by equipping participants with the skills they need to reduce sectarian and racist behaviour,
helping them to become agents of positive change within their own communities.”
Helen Bready, Nations Manager of City & Guilds commented:
"City & Guilds are delighted to be involved with the Thin End of theWedge initiative in the
development and implementation stage. The project's importance is reinforced in its aim to
encourage people back into education and accreditation, consequently helping enable
participants in their careers or back into employment."
Launch Day Participants
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