Show Racism the Red Card
Historical Welsh ground Rodney Parade was the stage for the launch of our 2012-13 Regional event season in Wales and 60 young people from Maindee Primary and St. Josephs Primary attended the stadium for the day to learn about racism.
Our education team Chris Stokes and former professional footballer Christian Roberts delivered a workshop in the morning to the young people educating them on the topic of racism using interactive activities and discussions.
The pupils learnt about stereotypes that exist in society and were challenged on myths along with some negative views that they had learnt from their community.
A new element was introduced for the first time, which was the SRtRC “Hot Seat”. At any point during the day a volunteer from the group could come and sit in the “Hot Seat” and share their views on racism, confess something they have done or said, or ask a question to the team or the audience.
The new element proved to be a success and a good edition to our event, with many pupils coming up and sharing something that had happened to them further highlighting that racism is still an ongoing issue in society. The “Hot Seat” also showed how young people are influenced by their peers / family and what they see on TV and read on the internet.
After Chris and Christian discussed terminology with the group, one of the young people came to the “Hot Seat” and said: I have used some of those bad words before, I did not know the history behind them and that they were wrong and hurtful to use, I now know what they mean and will never use them again and tell anyone using them that it is not right!”
Another new feature of the Campaign in Wales for this season was also launched and piloted for our first event. Prior to attending Rodney Parade, pupils were set a task to prepare in school for the afternoons anti-racism “press conference”.
Pupils had to create a newspaper name and were tasked with researching racism in sport and society. Pupils were also required to read newspapers and online blogs to explore how they are designed and written.
From the information they had learnt they had to prepare questions for the press conference at the event to help produce their article for their newspaper post event.
In the afternoon pupils watched our educational DVD which gave them a last opportunity to obtain further knowledge on the topic before the question and answer session in our new “media / press conference event”
Newport Gwent Dragons players Darren Waters and Andrew Coombs attended the event to take part in the press conference joined by Christian Roberts and Campaign Worker Jason Webber.
Pupils now in the role of newspaper journalists where selected to ask questions, they had to stand up and introduce themselves and the newspaper they worked for followed by their question.
The journalists posed some really challenging questions for the players and had clearly researched and planned some well thought out questions.
The best asked question who was Ruby from Maindee Primary school won the opportunity to be a mascot at a Dragons v Bayonne fixture at Rodney Parade on Saturday 20th October, 8.10pm kick off.
When the pupils return to school they will use all the information they had learnt at the event along with the responses from the players to write and design their article.
The articles will be sent into our office and the best written article will be awarded with tickets for their family at a Dragons game of their choice.
We would like to thank both the schools for attending the event and the Region for working in partnership to host the event at Rodney Parade and providing Dragons players to make the event special & the prizes for the pupils.
All pupils left with a smile on their face and a Dragons Poster signed by the players.
