In light of the events in the USA, across the world and protests in Wales following the death of George Floyd, North Wales MS Mark Isherwood has spoken out on hate crimes and emphasised the “wonderful” work being done by organisations in Wales, including Colwyn Bay based NWAMI, to tackle this through integration.
During yesterday’s weekly virtual Plenary Meeting of the Welsh Parliament, Mr Isherwood, who is the Honorary President of NWAMI (Networking for World Awareness for Multicultural Integration), spoke of the good work the organisation does to raise awareness of multicultural integration through education and cultural engagement, and how it is helping the Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic community during the Covid-19 pandemic.
During a question on community cohesion, he said:
"Hate crimes are based on ignorance and prejudice, and there's some wonderful work, for instance in North Wales, NWAMI, Networking for World Awareness of Multicultural Integration, which recognises that the best way to tackle that is through integration, through engagement, through sharing together. They're doing some wonderful work during the pandemic delivering food parcels, particularly to members of the Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic community who are isolating and who have dietary requirements due to medical or cultural needs.
"So, how can we better acknowledge the good work of organisations such as NWAMI and support that work, where it's often lost because it's soft as opposed to hard? It's engaging with people through cultural activities and celebration, and food, music and dance, alongside the more substantive solid projects that Welsh Government and others are also engaged with."
The Deputy Minister and Chief Whip, Jane Hutt MS, agreed that NWAMI is “an important force for good for progress and community cohesion in North Wales, alongside many of the other organisations” she has spoken to.
She added: “In fact, over the last few weeks we've had virtual online forums; the Wales race forum has met twice; we've met with these regional groups, one in Newport that John Griffiths attended. But I think it's important that we recognise that we'd already put funding into hate crime projects: £480,000 from the EU transition fund, and those hate crime projects and, indeed, further funding of £350,000 for tackling racism in schools.
“We know that Show Racism the Red Card in schools has a huge impact on children's learning and understanding. And that work, already those organisations, third sector BAME organisations, and it always includes those at the grass-roots level because they have such an impact and they're doing the work, as you say, culturally, socially and meeting the needs of some of the most excluded parts of our community.”