This November as part of our Spotlight on Racism feature, AACE is featuring information shared during a lunch and learn session held for ambulance staff on 12 October 2022.
The session, entitled Challenging Racism, was hosted by NEAS on behalf of NABMEF to highlight the work of Show Racism the Red Card (SRtRC), the UK’s leading anti-racism educational charity.
SRtRC was established in January 1996, thanks in part to a donation by then Newcastle United goalkeeper Shaka Hislop, after he was confronted with a group of young people shouting racist abuse at him.
When they realised he was a Newcastle United football player, they came over to ask for an autograph. From this experience that Shaka realised he could harness his status as a professional player to make a difference.
Coupled with the power of football and his status as a role model, Shaka thought education could be an effective strategy in challenging racism in society.
Fast forward to 2022 and our colleagues in North East Ambulance Service Diversity & Inclusion and Engagement team, (Yeshentha Naidoo and Mark Johns) kindly organised a lunch and learn session and invited Kenza Benamar from SRtRC to speak with representatives from other Ambulance Trusts also present at the session.
Kenza was able to cover a number of different areas relating to racism, understanding where prejudices come from, conscious and unconscious thinking, and how to challenge racism.
The conversation elicited lots of conversation and Kenza has shared an interesting book list as well as a Frequently Asked Questions sheet to help those wanting to learn more about this topic.
SRtRC provides educational sessions to any organisations that are interested – if you wish to find out more, click here, or watch the video below.
We’ll continue to post our Spotlight updates each month in our website’s News section and via Twitter at @AACE_Org.
You can find more information about our anti-racism promises, along with messages from all of our Ambulance Trust CEOs on our Stamping Out Racism page.
