Though colleagues will very often hear me talking about the problems of racial profiling as they are related to policing and criminal justice, there is an everyday version of racial profiling which relates to the movement of people through a wide range of public and private spaces, from simple things like shopping to engaging with state agencies or applying for services.
In this new article in Image Magazine, in partnership with INAR, Angela O’Shaughnessy explores the everyday nature of racial profiling in Ireland, interviewing 4 people who have experienced it. I was happy to help out with the legal and political background to racial profiling in Ireland.
Over the past few months, my role as spokesperson with Fingal Communities Against Racism has been particularly focused on sharing what we know about the attraction of conspiracy theories, online anti-mask and anti-lockdown groups, and the role of extreme hate groups in Ireland and abroad in driving division in our communities.
Fingal Communities Against Racism was set up in autumn 2019 to counter a far-right election campaign in the region, and drive out the groups who were attempting to use the region to create anti-immigration and white nationalist narratives about our towns. You can read more about our work at www.fingaltogether.ie
Since January 2021, I’ve spoken to a number of media outlets about our work to recognise and counter those movements through supporting people in every community to talk with those attracted to those ideas and reduce the likelihood of friends and family becoming attached to movements, events and ideas pushed by extreme hate groups.
To celebrate
International Women’s Day here in Fingal, and the incredible contribution women
make to the development of our region,
Fingal County Council Community Development Office are recognising and
supporting women’s leadership through conversations about the challenges and
opportunities women experience in setting out to improve our communities.
This week on behalf of Fingal County Council Community Development Office, I’m hosting a series of online conversations with women active in leadership in our area. I am joined by Geraldine Rooney, of the Centre for Independent Living Blanchardstown, Ayodele Yusuf, of Balbriggan Integration Forum, Bridie O’Reilly of the Fingal Older People’s Council, Shelly Gaynor, of the Independent Living Movement Ireland, and Catherine Joyce of Blanchardstown Traveller Development Group. I also talk to Anne Marie Farrelly, Chief Executive of Fingal County Council, who is Fingal’s first woman in that role.
Together we talk about the challenges facing women getting started in community action, the kinds of problem-solving leadership that women are doing here in Fingal, and how that involvement in community has changed their lives and that of the community around them. Internationally, women are much less likely to describe themselves as being leaders, and much more likely to describe themselves as doing leadership, and that’s true too for our interviewees this week.
With decades of
voluntary and professional work in the community between them, advocating for
opportunities, resources, justice and social change, they emphasise the
importance of seeing community leadership as a shared activity. You will hear
their advice on building networks of support, being recognised for your work,
the opportunities that open up through starting small, and ways of scaling up
small community actions to more influential means of affecting decision making
and policy across Fingal.
Geraldine Rooney talks
to us about how her desire to see small changes led to a big change in
direction for her, developing her skills and learning to see the bigger picture
so that she could commit herself to building something much larger and
effective than she had imagined at the start. We talk too about how women often
feel too unskilled for community leadership when they are younger, but struggle
with the silencing of older women’s voices when they become active later on.
Developing younger women in community leadership skills is key, but so is
recognising the experiences of older women who have come to community action
after raising their families or juggling early careers, because they bring a
lifetime of relevant skills with them. Their voice needs to be heard at
decision-making tables.
Bridie O’Reilly tells
us about how she learned the value of building a network of support for your
leadership work and taking credit for your own work, so that you have the
recognition and the resources to build on what you have achieved and leverage
that value for wider influence to improve your community. She shares her
experiences of community action as a younger woman, determined to build pride
amongst young people in their area and in themselves, and more recently in her
retirement as she has taken on the challenge of building a strong network to
advocate for and with older people who are isolated from the wider community.
In telling these stories, she shows us the way that opportunities come up in
different times of our lives for us to build community solidarity and support.
Not all of the projects we are involved in last for ever, but leadership is
about filling the gap that’s there now, and creating collective responses that
will positively change how we relate to and support one another.
Ayo Yusuf talks to us
about the need for persistence in community action, asking people to take
ownership of their ideas to improve their communities and be creative with
those. Leadership is something anyone can do, no matter their starting point,
and it’s a skill you learn the more involvement you have in your community.
Learning to work with people is key, as everyone has different motivations and
capacity to commit themselves to action. Getting discouraged is a common
experience, but you can learn to move past that, finding the people around you
who share your passion for your community and equally determined to get things
done.
Catherine Joyce asks
what we can do to improve coalition building between women leaders in different
areas and around different issues, so that we can advocate together for and
with one another in the different spaces we move in. She points out that women
are always involved in problem-solving in local communities, around employment,
schools, family supports, and raises the excellent point that we very often ask
women to conform to an abstract idea of leadership, rather than looking at
where community leadership is already embedded in women’s activities, and
recognising and supporting that properly.
Shelly Gaynor shows us what self-advocacy can become, tracking the journey from self-advocate to advocate for others, and how we can better supported disabled women in participation and leadership in our community life. She highlights the value of getting involved young, and growing your experience and confidence as a leader.
And finally Anne Marie
Farrelly talks to us about the ways in which women’s leadership contributes to
the many aspects of community life we take for granted day-to-day, and how
women’s voices can influence local decision-making. We talk about the changes
that would make a big difference to those women who are already involved in
community leadership and who would like to make bigger changes in our region
for themselves and others
I’m very excited to
hear and share their stories with you, and I hope you’ll join us through the
week to meet and learn from 6 incredible
women leading in community development in our region. We look forward to
hearing about your experiences too, and your thoughts about how we can support
women’s leadership in Fingal in future. Happy International Women’s Day from
all of us to all of you.
A Conversation on Women’s Leadership in the Community will celebrate women’s achievements and recognise challenges and opportunities that women experience when involved in community action.
Dr Lucy Michael will be joined in conversation by Geraldine Rooney, of the Fingal PPN and Centre for Independent Living Blanchardstown , Ayodele Yusuf, of Balbriggan Integration Forum, Bridie O’Reilly of the Fingal Older People’s Council, Shelly Gaynor, of the Independent Living Movement Ireland, Catherine Joyce of Blanchardstown Traveller Development Group and AnneMarie Farrelly, Chief Executive of Fingal County Council.
Please join them on celebrating International Women’s Day this 8th March. To register your interest and receive an invite to the launch click here https://form.jotform.com/210564851020041
The Premiere of our film with these amazing women will take place on Monday 8 March at 1pm on YouTube https://youtu.be/YpkfEVXLb7Y
DPO Coalition UN CRPD Information Webinar – Jan 2021 This presentation is an opportunity to learn about CRPD and what it means for you. We also explain about how Ireland reports to the UN and how you can become involved in this process. This video and the webinar where the content was originally presented are part of a process to create a Shadow Report to the UN on CRPD by the Disabled Persons Coalition (DPO Coalition). https://vimeo.com/518991942
Doing a quick review of 2020, and wow! what a year it has been!
Our 2020 projects included: – #Policing and racial profiling – Algorithmic bias and racism in #recruitment – Training employers and recruiters to address barriers for migrant women applicants – Integration programme design and evaluation training with local authorities and civil society orgs – The impact of digital skills on #refugee integration – Labour market assessments for pathway refugees – The impact of #Covid19 on local integration programmes – Rights awareness for people in the #InternationalProtection Process – Supporting advocacy by #Disabled Peoples’ Organisations – Racist incident reporting analysis – Hate crime and #hatespeech briefings ahead of the new legislation – Northern Ireland Life and Times Survey analysis with reference to #BlackLivesMatter (launch Jan 2021!)
So many exciting and valuable projects, great co-investigators and co-authors, and much to look forward to in 2021.
We are so privileged to have worked for and with such amazing people this year, and look forward to sharing more of our work with you in 2021!
I’m delighted to be an invited panellist this evening on this dialogue hosted by the African Professional Network of Ireland along with Dr Ebun Joseph, Dr James Carr, Bashir Otukoya, Annmarie Ní Choiléain and Emer Foley. Join us online or find out more about the series at http://apni.ie/lets-talk-about-it
