28/6/2006 - Racist attitudes challenged at Cumbria County Council

Racism in Cumbria will be centre stage at County Hall in Kendal when a full meeting of the county council watches a special play tackling the issues.

Councillors will get to watch and discuss the anti-racism play Just Passingat around midday during the full council meeting on Thursday, June 29th.

Just Passingis a specially commissioned piece of forum theatre to help school children in the county explore the issues of ignorance, racism and attitudes towards minorities.

Commissioned in 2005 in response to the county council's Cumbrian Attitudes Survey, the play tells the interwoven stories of Francis, a Gypsy dinner lady working in a Cumbrian school, and Nadine, a 15-year-old Zimbabwean asylum-seeker who is new to the school. 

Nadine is bullied for being an asylum-seeker and Francis faces a campaign supported by a racist pupil to get her evicted from her own land. 

The performance will be followed by a discussion on the issues raised in the play.

Philip Chappelhow, council spokesman for Children's Service, said: "This is an excellent and powerful production and an effective way of getting youngsters in Cumbrian schools dealing with important issues like prejudice. I wanted all the councillors to see what we're doing in schools and to have a think about the issues themselves.

"In Cumbria, as in other parts of the country, we need to guard against prejudice and racist attitudes, particularly in our children. We need to tackle the issues and be seen to be tacking them."

The council chairman Alan Caine will ask members to give pernmission to film and photograph the action in the council chamber. 

Just Passingfollows on from the success of Ally Comes to Cumbria which toured the county's schools in 2004 telling the story of a trials and tribulations of black schoolgirl who moved to the county from Manchester.

Notes for Editors

The teaching pack that goes with Just Passingcan be found at www.cumbriagridforlearning.org.uk. Go to 'curriculum', then 'multicultural'.

When the play is performed for a school audience, pupils are invited to consider what they would do in Dani’s position. Dani is a white girl who is initially friends with both Francis and Nadine, but, partly due to her own ignorance, fails to take any action to stand up for her friends, and indeed, bears some responsibility for Francis’ eviction. Pupils are invited to replace Dani in the second performance of the play at critical moments where Dani might have taken a different course of action. In this way, pupils are invited to think about, and show, how they might have acted differently in her situation.