Stepping Into Diversity

The project will develop a working group of agencies who deal with ethnic
minorities and invite representatives from these groups to participant in
awareness raising sessions on Northern Ireland cultural issues. The project
will also target a number of local community groups to participate in
awareness raising sessions regarding other backgrounds.

The Key aims of this project are:

To increase the understanding of local people in regard to other ethnic backgrounds

To increase the understanding of people from other ethnic backgrounds in regard to local culture.

To assist these participants to creatively help contribute to a just and peaceful society.

To build an awareness of the corrosive effects of racism and descrimination

To build skills in being able to challenge inappropriate stereotyping, prejudice and discrimination

To take lessons learned and share them with relevant statutory agencies

Training of Facilitators was held in Turku in Finland and in 2006 there was a Training
of Trainers programme and a Training of Facilitators programme in Northern Ireland.
The trainers trained in Northern Ireland delivered the Training of Facilitators programme.

DPC is a practical training, which ties models of conflict to strategies for change. The
international nature of this project is very exciting and in the first Training of Trainers,
DPC trained people from Northern Ireland, U.S., Philippines, South America,
Canada, Palestine, The Netherlands and Uganda. The sharing of international good
practice is invaluable to this training.