June Community Safety and Inclusion Roundtable

As a follow on from the ERANO, Community Safety and Inclusion Roundtable, held a few weeks back, last Thursday we meet with community representatives from the new communities now residing in Fermanagh and Omagh to hear from them any concerns they may have regarding rhetoric around the immigration topic.

This ERANO initiative was set up prior to the racial riots across Northern Ireland in recent weeks to help both local representatives, and new communities representatives, to work together towards building a united cohesive district. However, it became apparent that the tensions we witnessed, and the racist violence of recent days have had a huge emotional impact on the refugee and newcomer communities as they fear for their safety and that of their children. Discussion centred around the spread of misinformation, the lack of knowledge among the public with many not knowing that resettled refugees have been vetted and invited into the UK by the government, little or no information regarding economic migrants and the large fees they have to pay to come here to work as skilled workers in our factories and nursing homes. Others spoke of the trauma of leaving their homes and worries for the future.

The PSNI was present and spoke with the new communities to offer reassurance in these unsettled times and the Good Relations Officer, from FODC, stated that the council is shortly establishing a multi agency forum to address issues related to new communities, refugees, asylum seekers, undocumented people, and migrants.
The message was that agencies, statutory bodies, and the charity sector, are standing and working together against racism and they welcomed the diversity and input from the new communities.

Acknowledging many people had legitimate concerns around immigration it was agreed that more educational training was required so people could make factual statements rather than echoing social media click bits.
It was also fitting that the new communities had the opportunity to be heard last week as we celebrated Refugee Week.

New initiatives by FODC council to support the communities through a multi agency forum are also very welcome.