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by Agnes Lasuba, Race Equality Officer.

This is my first Annual Report as Race Equality Officer [REO]. I have been in post for 7 months but this report will cover the 12 moths Work Programme: April 1999 to March 2000. Since the NNREC was established with funding in 1995 it has been a singleton REC until September 1999 when I was appointed. During the 4 years the NNREC Director Anne Matin acknowledged the findings in ‘Not In Norfolk’ (1994) i.e. there are people living in isolation in rural Norfolk, experiencing racist incidents and isolation, who do not know where to turn for help.

People experiencing racism need services and NNREC has taken steps to reach them and continues to improve our outreach work. With this conviction, a lot of hard work was put into tackling rural racism. Forming partnerships with the District and Borough Councils, NNREC established surgeries which decreased the burden on the services in the city of Norwich. From this background which I also played part in, I feel as REO I have a strong base to tackle rural racism. I have taken a strategic approach to build upon this work and to ensure a high performance is reached and enhance all the targets indicated in the Work Programme.

This has been realised as this year reported racist incidents in the city have increased by 67% and reports in the rural areas have increased by 61%.

Racial Harassment / Racial Discrimination (RH/RD)
This is a high priority area in the REO’s Work Programme where 50% of the working hours are allotted. During the year between the Police and NNREC a total of 346 racist incidents are recorded and 40 perpetrators taken to court and convicted. Below I provide statistics on records of racist incidents in Norfolk according to divisional areas.

Racist Incidents Statistical Records 1999-2000

Note: NNREC has provided advice and assistance to the majority of the records under ‘Police’. We always refer complaints of RH to the police as racism is a criminal offence. The records under ‘NNREC’ are other cases, predominantly in education and housing areas where people preferred not to involve police.

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See also:
Norfolk's Racial
Equality Council
Eradicating racism
World Voices
Other features

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