Beating blues and spreading racial harmony

NEW YEAR celebrations came early for the Dublin Chinatown Festival Committee yesterday as it was given a €15,000 grant for its efforts to bring gaiety to the streets of the capital.

Organisers of an annual event that banishes the gloom of January, the committee is among 87 community groups and organisations given grants totalling €€322,000 for also helping to spread the message of racial harmony and understanding. In the past three years, Know Racism, the national anti-racism awareness programme, has allocated €1,290,000 to 450 projects in all 26 counties of the state.

Inishowen Community Radio in Co Donegal is also being funded for a 10-part series of radio magazine programmes dealing with racism locally and nationally. Dublin’s Temple Street Children’s Hospital is getting a grant for a research project to identify the needs of staff as well as diversity training for employees. Equality Junior Minister Willie O’Dea said the provision of almost 1.3m in funding for local initiatives had made an important contribution in helping to raise an awareness of racism and an appreciation of cultural diversity in local communities nationwide.