City Duo Help Show Racism The Red Card
Pupils from partner Primary Stars schools came to King Power Stadium to take part in workshops, exploring racism and stereotypes and what hate crime is, before the panel hosted a Q&A in the afternoon.
It was part of a series of 15 educational events with football clubs in England to educate about hate crime as part of a project supported by Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG), which will also include educational work in schools and teacher training.
Simpson said: “Obviously for the future, we want to kick racism out completely. This is the next generation and if we can teach these kids now that we’re all equal, it doesn’t matter your skin colour, then going forward for the country it will be beneficial for future.
“They’ve asked some great questions and it goes to show what a good job events like this are doing. I’ve done a couple of these events now and the questions are getting harder.”
School Sports Officer Glenn Short said: “The Trust have been working in partnership with SRtRC delivering educational sessions to children across Leicester for a number of years. The content and delivery of sessions encapsulates the influence a football club can have on conveying such an important message to young people about racism.
“Children leave the sessions with more knowledge and awareness of such important issues within our society reinforced by LCFC professional footballers sharing their personal thoughts and experiences of racism.”
In January 2017, Communities Secretary Sajid Javid announced SRtRC would be one of four projects to offer education to encourage the reporting and prevention of hate crime.
Announcing the funding, he said: “Let me be clear. Hate crime has no place whatsoever in British society. We will not stand for it. All communities must be able to live their lives free from fear of verbal or physical attack.”
The project will build on the government’s work detailed in the Hate Crime Action Plan to challenge the misperceptions that lead to hate crime and support victims from marginalised communities to stand up and report incidents.
Leicester City Football Club has worked with the campaign consistently over many years to educate about racism.
Skipper Morgan added: “It’s a big, big thing. Obviously, there shouldn’t be racism in sport or society in general but, unfortunately, we’ve still got elements of that everywhere. It’s about raising awareness, doing events like this, to make sure people don’t forget about it or get complacent.
“Everybody wants to be involved in something that is positive in life and this is. It’s about getting a strong message out there. The pupils are really engaged and they’re really interested in why it’s happening and how to stop it. Bit by bit, it will get better.”