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Thanks to the support from The Executive Office’s Central Good Relations Funding, the Centre for Democracy and Peace Building delivered ‘Ending Hate. Embracing Diversity.’ as part of the longstanding Unite Against Hate campaign.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Unite Against Hate 2022 comprised of four key elements:

1. A Workshop Series led by experts on diversity and inclusion (Deepa Mann-Kler), community relations (Sughra Ahmed) and mediation (Dorcas Crawford), helped attendees to develop the skills to overcome their biases, build braver communities and communicate in a healthy and conflict-free manner.
2. Online and On-demand Workshops based upon the initial workshop series accessible to all for FREE on Unite Against Hate website.
3. The Unite Against Hate Pledge asking people to challenge, reach out and speak out against prejudice and hate crime within Northern Ireland. This pledge received support from across the community within NI and across political parties with several MLAs signing to pledge support.
4. The Pledge Launch at the Skainos Centre in East Belfast. This insightful day was organised to include panels discussing topics such as challenges to peaceful relations in NI today, as well as the experiences of ethnic minorities in NI. The pledge itself was launched at the event by the Lord Mayor Kate Nicholl.

CDPB Chair Baroness Ritchie commented: ″Embracing diversity and uniting against hate is crucial in Northern Ireland because we know the consequences of prejudice, discrimination and hatred. We must embrace and support our minority communities and show them that Northern Ireland has learned from the past, and is now a place where diversity is celebrated, not rejected.″

The Unite Against Hate campaign has been delivered by the Centre for Democracy and Peace Building and supported by the Executive Office’s Central Good Relations Funding, part of the The ‘Together: Building a United Community’ (T:BUC) Strategy.

Rethinking Leadership. Oxford Series. Spiritual Leadership in the Time of War.

Thursday, 28 April 2022 | 10.30am – 12.30am | Harris Manchester College, University of Oxford

The war in Ukraine showed that victory is not only about raw power. It is also about spiritual leadership. What will change in our vision of leadership? What lessons can we draw from Ukrainian heroic resistance and the solidarity of neighbouring countries with Ukraine and Ukrainian refugees? What does this war mean for the West’s leadership? What cultural resources do we have when faced with violence?

In the first of six seminars in the Rethinking Leadership. Oxford Series we set out to seek models of leadership that address the most pressing challenges of our time. And the war is the first among them. Our initial premise is that leadership is an art of courageous presence in the midst of chaos, it is a spiritual journey between ever-new polarities, it is a search for meaning. In leadership personal authenticity meets social and political dilemmas. But how can we be present when we are faced with atrocities and genocidal acts? Is there a place for love and goodness, when we are overrun with hatred and evil. What is the West’s responsibility for the Russian invasion? What should be our next steps?

Speakers:

• The Lord Alderdice FRCPsych, Senior Research Fellow, Harris Manchester College
• Dr Marek Mutor, President of The Platform of European Memory and Conscience, Founder and Director of the ”Memory and Future” Centre and “Centrum Historii Zajezdnia”
• Dr Anna Abram, Principal of Margaret Beaufort Institute of Theology, Cambridge
• Special Guest: Father Oleh Kindiy, professor of Ukrainian Catholic University
• Co-chairs: Professor Michal Luczewski, Two Wings Institute and Eva Grosman, Centre for Democracy and Peace Building

Register at: https://tinyurl.com/twowings1

This event is co-organised by the Two Wings Institute and Zajezdnia – the Remembrance and Future Centre in Wroclaw, in partnership with the Oxford Centre for the Resolution of Intractable Conflict, Centre for Democracy and Peace Building, Oxford Polish Association and the Polish Cultural Institute in London, and co-financed by the Polish National Foundation.

Join us for a series of three online workshops to explore how through understanding bias, challenging misconceptions, and the development of better communications skills, we can help to eradicate hate, embrace diversity and become better co-workers, neighbours and citizens.

• Session 1: “Without Bias” with Deepa Mann-Kler, Diversity and Inclusion Specialist

This session will explore and highlight how bias impacts all of us, what are the triggers, and what we can do to mitigate the impact of bias.

• Session 2: “Building Braver Communities” with Sughra Ahmed, Director of Education, Robert F Kennedy Human Rights UK

This session will challenge and explore misconceptions about ethnic and religious minorities and help us to better understand the issues affecting our communities, today. 

• Session 3: “The Better Way” with Dorcas Crawford, Conflict Management Consultant, The Better Way

 In this session we will look at the skills that help us manage conflict in a healthy, respectful non-combative way.

Group 1

Tuesday evenings: 6pm – 7.30pm

• Tue, 8 Feb
• Tue, 15 Feb
• Tue, 22 Feb

Register at: https://tinyurl.com/ya6bzmcx

 

Group 2

Thursday mornings: 10am – 11.30am

• Thurs, 10 Feb
• Thurs, 17 Feb
• Thurs, 24 Feb

Register at: https://tinyurl.com/3ucf49jf

 

Our contributors:

Deepa Mann-Kler, Diversity and Inclusion Specialist

Deepa Mann-Kler is Chief Executive of Neon a health technology company; Visiting Professor In Immersive Futures with Ulster University; has 14 years Non-Executive leadership experience with a cross sector exposure across the UK and is passionate about delivering change in equality, diversity and inclusion. As a thought leader and TEDx speaker she keynotes at conferences on the intersection of technology, innovation, diversity, ethics, bias, culture, data, health and wellbeing through compelling storytelling. Deepa is author of the first report on race discrimination with policy recommendations for the public sector in Northern Ireland “Out Of The Shadows.”

Sughra Ahmed, Director of Education, Robert F Kennedy Human Rights UK

Sughra Ahmed, Director of Education at Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights, UK, specialises in human rights education, enabling schools and young people to take a person-centered approach in understanding global human rights and explore the power of agency in creating impactful change.

She is also Founder Director of Bridging Our Divides, an organisation that seeks to build a collective working towards the common good – for which the key principles are listening, understanding, and creating progressive grassroots change by working with people from all walks of life in some of the most socio-economically deprived parts of England.

Working in a range of religious capacities, she has spent time in the UK and USA exploring contextual theology and religious expressions across communities of faith and belief. Most recently, as Associate Dean for Religious Life, at Stanford University, she worked with young people helping them to find meaning and purpose as they moved through their academic lives.

Dorcas Crawford, Conflict Management Consultant, The Better Way

Dorcas is a recovering lawyer, having spent 34 years in Belfast law firm, Edwards & Co. Solicitors where she was Senior Partner until 2021. Dorcas qualified as a mediator in 2008 and in 2015 launched ‘The Better Way’, a specialist conflict management service. She sold her law firm in April 2021, retiring from the law to pursue her passion for helping people to find solutions for conflict through training, facilitation and mediation. Dorcas is well known as a business leader in NI, particularly for her innovative Twitter networking initiative #Belfasthour which became known as one of the most effective online marketing communities for SME’s. Dorcas is a committed supporter of Bowel Cancer UK and is 2021 President of Lean In Ireland.