As campaigning today led us to Falkirk and Tullibody, international headlines were dominated by North Korea’s outrageous nuclear test. British headlines featured the death in Coleraine of a 49-year-old father-of-four, Kevin McDaid, who was beaten to death by a sectarian mob after yesterday’s culmination of the Scottish football season.When he was Scottish First Minister, Jack McConnell described sectarianism as Scotland's "secret shame". He made tackling sectarianism a key priority. The SNP’s heel-dragging on a national strategy to combat sectarianism and their scandalous dithering over funding for the leading anti-sectarian charity Nil By Mouth have taken the steam out of Labour’s drive.
In Northern Ireland, sectarianism remains a very public shame as the tragic events in Coleraine confirm. But police in Glasgow have yet to exclude that the three murders around Glasgow yesterday were related to the end of the football season. Then there was the stabbing outside Celtic Park yesterday afternoon ...
It need not be like this. My Swedish family and friends simply fail to comprehend what religious sectarianism is. They just don’t get it. It is an alien concept. The same applies to most of my colleagues who are EU employees from outside Britain and Ireland.
But travelling around Scotland during this campaign has also revealed some positive work. The Raploch in Stirling used to be notorious. It was one of the most deprived and excluded areas in Scotland, until a Labour-led initiative started to run around the area through a £120 million investment. 900 new homes and a range of community enterprises are revitalising the area through a process undertaken with the local community, not for them. European funding has again played a key role.
For the professionals of the Raploch Urban Regeneration Company, the Education Campus is the “jewel in the crown”. On one fantastic new site in the heart of the community, the campus gathers together a nursery, special needs provision, out-of-school care, Forth Valley College course provision and outreach for employability facilities.
Above all, the two local primary schools – Roman Catholic and non-denominational – also share the same school grounds on the Education Campus. The teachers from the two schools even share the same staffroom. What a beautifully simple but great idea.
As for the football teams, Rangers and Celtic football clubs have both launched projects to tackle sectarian attitudes and behaviour amongst their supporters, educate young people about the problems of prejudice and encourage fans to support their team without indulging in sectarian behaviour.
It really does not need to be like what we endured this weekend.
It need not be like this. My Swedish family and friends simply fail to comprehend what religious sectarianism is. They just don’t get it. It is an alien concept. The same applies to most of my colleagues who are EU employees from outside Britain and Ireland.
But travelling around Scotland during this campaign has also revealed some positive work. The Raploch in Stirling used to be notorious. It was one of the most deprived and excluded areas in Scotland, until a Labour-led initiative started to run around the area through a £120 million investment. 900 new homes and a range of community enterprises are revitalising the area through a process undertaken with the local community, not for them. European funding has again played a key role.
For the professionals of the Raploch Urban Regeneration Company, the Education Campus is the “jewel in the crown”. On one fantastic new site in the heart of the community, the campus gathers together a nursery, special needs provision, out-of-school care, Forth Valley College course provision and outreach for employability facilities.
Above all, the two local primary schools – Roman Catholic and non-denominational – also share the same school grounds on the Education Campus. The teachers from the two schools even share the same staffroom. What a beautifully simple but great idea.
As for the football teams, Rangers and Celtic football clubs have both launched projects to tackle sectarian attitudes and behaviour amongst their supporters, educate young people about the problems of prejudice and encourage fans to support their team without indulging in sectarian behaviour.
It really does not need to be like what we endured this weekend.
Find out more about the Raploch regeneration initiative here http://www.raploch.com/ and about Nil By Mouth here http://nilbymouth.org/
No comments:
Post a Comment