An international workshop on racism and discrimination against migrant women in Europe was held in Dublin recently.
The event, focused on tackling the stereotypes at the root of racism, was an initiative of the Association of Ghanaian Professionals in Ireland (AGPI) and co-sponsored by the Fundamental Rights and Citizenship Programme of the European Commission as part of AGPI’s Where the Rivers Meet project.
Addressing the workshop, AGPI chair Dr Vincent Agyapong highlighted the need for all efforts to be made in “uprooting the canker of racism” from all nations. He stressed that racism against migrant women living in Europe was regrettably very rampant.
Where the Rivers Meet co-ordinator Belinda Agyapong said the first phase of the project had concluded, with each partner organising 40 hours of social theatre workshops on racism.
According to Agyapong, the second phase has just commenced in each partner country and involves over 80 hours of drama workshops and rehearsals of a play written around the life stories of women participants.
She added that the plays would be staged by all partner organisations at an international social theatre festival to be held in Valencia in April 2012.
In her own contribution, Italy-based project facilitator Anna Volpi said social theatre plays a huge part as an integration instrument for migrants.
The workshop also heard from former MEP and current Dáil TD Joe Higgins, who told participants that Ireland’s current economic crisis was not the creation of immigrants in spite of common arguments to the contrary.
On the increasing rate of racism in Ireland, Higgins said racism was unheard of in Ireland just 20 years ago “because Ireland did not have any foreigners”.
He reminded participants that for centuries, Irish citizens emigrated to other countries in search of a better life, and he wondered why some Irish would not be welcoming of immigrants given this history.
Participants at the workshop included representatives from partner organisations in Spain, Italy, Austria and Romania, as well as representatives of voluntary organisations and civil society groups in Ireland, the Garda, political parties and the diplomatic corp.
