Martin O'BrienNorthern Ireland is well known for its endemic sectarianism but racism, another vile ‘ism’ is also never too far below the surface challenging the Churches and others to strive for its extirpation.
There is evidence that racism has come increasingly to the fore in the two decades since the republican and loyalist ceasefires of 1994.
PSNI figures show that that there are two racist incidents reported, and more than one incident recorded as a racist hate crime every day.
One organisation, whose foundation was inspired by Catholic sisters in Belfast almost a decade and a half ago, has been rising to the challenge of tackling racism in Northern Ireland.
It is EMBRACENI (www.embraceni.org), an inter-Church charity whose mission is to work for the ‘building of a welcoming community’ in the North.
“Though harder to spot, [than sectarianism] racism can be found in the leafy suburbs when neighbours come face to face with newcomers to our society. What does this all say of us and how we live out our Christianity?” asks Dr Noel McCune, a retired consultant psychiatrist and a member of the EMBRACENI committee in its April online prayer sheet.
“Essentially we are about helping the Churches and Church groups to welcome other people from other parts of the world into their communities and make them feel at home and part of things,” explains Rev. Richard Kerr, EMBRACENI’s chairperson and minister of Templepatrick Presbyterian Church, Co. Antrim.
Sharp contrast
Rev. Kerr is a founder member of EMBRACENI which was formally established in 2003 but its roots go back about two years before.
A native of Ramelton, Co. Donegal, Mr Kerr worked as a lay missionary in Malawi for 10 years, largely funded by the Irish Government’s overseas aid programme.
On his return he studied for the ministry in Belfast and was struck by the “sharp contrast” between the welcome he received in Malawi and “the suspicion, disdain and outright hostility at times” experienced by migrants.
“EMBRACENI came out of an initiative by Dominican and Mercy sisters in north Belfast. Initially its focus was the needs of asylum seekers and refugees but that has developed into how we welcome migrants more generally.”
Director
Co-founder Sr Brighde Vallely OP, now a member of the Irish Dominican Sisters Provincial Council team in Dublin and then director of CORI in Northern Ireland takes up the story.
“One evening, two fellow Dominican sisters, Catherine Campbell and Noreen Christian, and a sister of Mercy, Mary Delargy, arrived at the doorstep of CORI on the Springfield Road beside the peace line and asked what are you doing about the new people who have arrived in the country, the asylum seekers and the immigrants.”
It was a searching question and Sr Catherine, Sr Noreen and Sr Mary may have been more perspicacious and visionary than they may have realised at the time.
That was around 2001 and although the numbers of ‘strangers’ were growing they were still relatively small and the dramatic enlargement of the EU, and with it the mainly free movement of labour arising from the accession of 10 new countries, including eight from behind the old Iron Curtain, was still three years away.
“We didn’t really know anything about those strangers in our midst and I took that question seriously,” recalls Sr Brighde.
“We got a group together to educate ourselves about this new reality in our midst, we called ourselves the Focus Group on Refugees and Asylum Seekers. The Red Cross and the St Vincent de Paul helped us in this work.”
Sr Brighde recalls that since CORI (NI) was committed to peace building and reconciliation the obvious next step was to invite interested colleagues from the main Christian Churches to join them.
“So EMBRACENI was born. It sought to reflect Gospel values and to equip the Churches to fulfil their call to ‘welcome the other’.”
Language barrier
Sr Brighde expresses particular satisfaction that the letters RACE are in the name of the organisation because it signified a welcome for strangers of whatever race and background.
Those who quickly lent support included the Redemptorists in Belfast led by Fr Michael Kelleher CSsR, now Irish Provincial, Archbishop Robin Eames and his wife Lady Christine and the late Dr David Stevens, a Presbyterian elder and general secretary of the Irish Council of Churches.
Today EMBRACENI is based in a small office near Queen’s University and is funded mainly by the Office of the First Minister and Deputy First Minister and the Community Relations Council.
The four main Churches, Catholic, Presbyterian, Church of Ireland and Methodist are contributing around £4,000 each per year which funds a development worker, Aneta Dabek.
Aneta, a Pentecostal, arrived in the North as a migrant from Poland in 2004 and has been working for EMBRACENI for four years.
Aneta cites “the language barrier” as being a particular problem for migrants.
To help alleviate this and other challenges EMBRACENI has developed a ‘Toolkit’ which provides ideas and guidance for churches on how to make newcomers welcome.
New ideas
EMBRACENI has also rolled out an impressive programme of English language classes, a translation service and workshops and its website is bursting with new ideas and developments including a DVD Hear My Voice in which a range of migrants speak candidly.
However, the charity is under no illusion that important challenges lie ahead including increasing its presence west of the Bann and encompassing the smaller evangelical Protestant churches.
EMBRACENI’s spring meeting at Edgehill Theological College Belfast on May 10 at 7.30pm will examine what lessons can be learned from the European Churches in tackling the consequences of migration.
For Rev. Richard Kerr and his team developing “a culture of welcome” remains nothing short of a biblical imperative “at the heart of the Gospel and not an optional extra”.
He thinks that the Catholic Church “is better” at emphasising “the human dignity of every person” than the Protestant churches.
“It is a God-given mandate to welcome the stranger. ‘When a stranger stays with you do him no wrong… Love him as yourself for you have been strangers in the land of Egypt’.” (Leviticus 19: 33-34).