Living in Belfast

The “Living in Belfast” project aims to make a smoother move for Black Minority Ethnic People and Migrant Workers to live and work in Belfast and learn about our history and how to get involved in the community.

The celebration event at Belfast City hall was launched by the Lord Mayor, the right honourable Councellor Patrick Convery.  The Lord Mayor outlined how Belfast has become an increasingly cosmopolitan city and the City Council has recognised the need to help welcome new migrant communities to the city. Understandably, these communities have all sorts of concerns when arriving to Belfast, especially as our culture, values and beliefs can be very different to their own. The Living in Belfast makes it easier for these communities feel welcome and learn of the idiosyncrasies of our fair city. Role play was used to outline the challenge GEMS faced during the project before the Coordinator went into detail.

The event was the opportunity to share experiences and learn from the project. Instead of the intended 10 we trained 32 trainers who work with new communities and migrant workers who in turn deliver the training to over 70 participants who use their organisation and the information also used the “Living in Belfast” back pocket guide to inform their work to hundreds more and continue to do so.  We developed a website to support trainers with online resources. The project took on a life of its own and I would like to share this with you.

The first great example of this is with the Coordinator of the Race Relation Integration Project, of the South Belfast Roundtable who runs the weekly Friendship Club in South Belfast. She has been giving the “Living in Belfast” back pocket to members on a weekly basis. This has been very helpful for migrants that have newly arrived or been in Belfast for a short time to find out local information. The Friendship club attracts a wide range of Black Minority Ethnic people and locals with a large group of regular attendees from countries including Spain, Slovakia, Latvia, Portugal, Nepal and a number of African Countries including Zimbabwe and Cameroon.

To highlight the diversity of the project in practice the second of many examples is the trainer from Conway Mill in West Belfast. She works as an ESOL Tutor and has integrated the information into her ESOL lessons and she spoke at the event to share her experience of the project and how it supported the learning of her students. Although some of her learners have lived here for over four years they still benefited from the sharing of information and learnt from the project.

The life and diversity of the LIB project is something that GEMS would like to capture and develop further after the project completed in December 2010. GEMS have gained ESF funding for MEESP which also includes “Living in Belfast”.