Durham PCC Teams up with former footballer to end racism
A former footballer is working to stamp out racism in North East schools.
Olivier Bernard has teamed up with campaign group Show Racism The Red Card, to deliver workshops in County Durham schools, along with Durham’s Police and Crime Commissioner Ron Hogg.
They’re reaching out to young people to teach them what racist behaviour is and the consequences it can have.
This is part of the PCVC’s commitment to reducing racist crimes in County Durham and Darlington.
Mr Hogg said;
“We still have a number of racist incidents every year, racist crimes.
“We tell children if you see something that’s racist, report it, don’t ignore it and I think it’s so important that we build up this confidence to report racist incidents, we know it’s going on.
“It needs to be dealt with, and we need to encourage people to treat each other correctly.”
The ex-Newcastle defender, who now owns Durham City AFC, explained it’s important to reach out to kids before they develop strong views;
“It’s a lot harder to change an adult who’s had experience in life, and young people are the people of tomorrow so we believe strongly in educating those young people.
“In the future they will be equipped enough to combat this racism.”
Pupils at Whinfield Primary school in Darlington are the latest to take part in the workshops, where they were given a lesson in how certain words and phrases could be hurtful or derogatory.
Year 6’s Tom Kipling told us why he thought the sessions were so vital;
“Racism is still happening, people are fighting to try and stop it, but we have to remember there’s always a way but sometimes it takes a while.
“We’re getting used to people coming in from different countries with different skin colours, different religions, different opinions on things.”