Anti-racism workshop tours schools for National Hate Crime Awareness Week

A powerful anti-racism workshop has begun touring primary schools across Tameside, in time for Hate Crime Awareness Week on 11-18 October.

Commissioned by Tameside Council Community Safety Partnership, the project brings together Odd Arts and SRTRC to deliver sessions with both primary and secondary schools in Tameside. The aim is to provide education which enables anti-racism conversation to continue following initial engagement.

‘Show Racism the Red Card (SRTRC)’ involves a theatre performance based on a local story of Winston Jones, followed by supported activities to spark conversation and raise awareness of racism and its effects.

Winston Jones was a victim of the wind-rush scandal. It tells the story of Winston being sent “back” to Jamaica and living homeless for 10 years while trying to get back to England where his family still lived. The play explores racism and looks at themes around identity and ‘home’.

The performances will cover the following core themes:

• What are stereotypes? What preconceived ideas do we have?
• Where do these ideas come from? How can we be critical thinkers?
• What is racism?
• How can we be active allies?

The delivery of the project has been split into two waves, shaped by feedback from students and teachers. The first five schools will play a key role in refining both the play and its accompanying workshop, helping to identify which themes have the biggest impact and where they can make adjustments.

This then will be run in secondary schools, a college setting and in the form of adult/teacher training. The project delivery will take place from October 2025 to March 2026.

Additionally, the Tameside Council Community Safety team has a collection of eight videos that Interference Art have created with community leads, that represent the emotions behind receiving Hate Crime. Community Safety and Greater Manchester Police will also talk about the motivation for hate and need for reporting hate crime. 

Executive Member for Towns, Transport and Connectivity, Cllr Stephen Homer said: “This project is incredibly important in educating our younger residents on such powerful and prevalent themes. It is fantastic to see the facilitators taking on feedback to help adjust and improve the play so that it best resonates with the students as it is so vital raise awareness of issues of racism and the effects it has.”