Black Networking Group » immigration

The Pariah Syndrome: An account of Gypsy slavery and persecution by Ian Hancock

BNG — Tue, 18 May 2010 19:55:47 +0000

Foreword by Dr. T.A. Acton

Ian Hancock is a marginal man. Like all Romani intellectuals, he has had to live torn between the pariah status of his people and the embrace of a dominant culture which can hardly conceive of such a monster as an educated Gypsy.

Some Gypsies in this position accept this, and pass as non-Gypsies, keeping at a distance all their Romani relatives, and keeping silence at who knows what cost, to them and their own children, on all of their family’s past. But a sprinkling of such people find a personal liberation by joining Romani organizations where intellectuals can make a political contribution to winning a better place in society for their people. They have to face incomprehension by non-Gypsies, and often rejection by assimilated relatives, and the constant accusation that they are not “true Gypsies.” Face to face with the divided reality of their identity, they are like the man in Yevtushenko’s poem, strung out on a high-wire “between the city of yes and the city of no.”………………….

Foreword to the Patrin Web Journal edition

This book was the first in English to deal with the enslavement of the Romani people in Romania. When it first appeared in 1987, no one expected that massive political and social changes would begin to take place in Eastern Europe just two years later. With the death of Ceaucescu in 1989 and the shift to democracy in Romania, many more documents concerning those more than five terrible centuries have come to light, and our knowledge of the nature of Gypsy slavery, and the implications it has for our understanding of the world view and character of those descended from it — the Vlax Roma — are just now beginning to be understood.

http://web.archive.org/web/20080802212237/http://www.geocities.com/Paris/5121/pariah-contents.htm

United Nations Statement

BNG — Tue, 13 Apr 2010 21:06:04 +0000

A statement by Gay McDougall, United Nations Independent Expert on Minority issues, on UK National Gypsy, Roma and Traveller History Month emphasised the importance of the month when stating: “I warmly welcome today the beginning of the UK National Gypsy, Roma and Traveller History Month as a valuable example of how minorities’ contributions to society can and should be discussed, celebrated and promoted. Widespread societal discrimination and anti-Gypsy, Roma and Traveller prejudice continues and must be addressed by all countries in which it remains an ugly and disturbing reality.”

http://www.grthm.co.uk/un-statement.php

LECP Training

BNG — Tue, 13 Apr 2010 09:17:54 +0000

Training the Young People’s Workforce in 2010 the UN International Year of Youth

On this site we will have:
- A list of all training that we are publicising (our own and relevant others)
- a discussion blog on training and related issues
- last minute free or discounted training offers for those signed up as friends
You can also contact us through our main site at:

http://www.lecp.org.uk/training/

Please feel free to contribute, please feel free to share this site with others

http://lecp-training.ning.com/

Black Presence

BNG — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 01:41:42 +0000

The Black Presence website was formerly the Black Presence in Britain, history site about the contribution of African descended people in British history.

The Black Presence in Britain website was set up in 1998 due to a lack of information about Black people in Britain to be found on the Internet.

I was studying politics at the time, the course included a history module called; ” The black Presence in Britain 1550-present day”.

Whilst doing my research I found a serious lack of Black British info online. So, I decided to build my own site where this information could be documented. The site has had many incarnations since then. ?I built the first version of it using Netscape composer, later moving on to Dreamweaver. Today the site uses comtent management software.

http://www.blackpresence.co.uk/

Black Mental Health UK

BNG — Sun, 24 Jan 2010 21:59:19 +0000

About us

Black Mental Health UK (BMH UK) was established in 2006 to raise awareness and address the stigma associated with mental illness.

The aim of our work is to see a reduction in the inequalities in the treatment and care of people from African Caribbean communities who use mental health services, and to inform these communities on how to influence the strategic development, policy design and implementation of services.

BMH UK’s focus is on empowering African Caribbean communities to improve the Black service user experience and reduce the over representation of Black people at the coercive end of psychiatric care.

Please note
The Black Mental Health UK does not provide help, treatment, counselling, care service or advice for those in crisis. We are not able to discuss individual cases.

http://www.blackmentalhealth.org.uk/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=22&Itemid=56

The scandal of ‘criminalising’ mental health patients

BNG — Sun, 24 Jan 2010 21:37:18 +0000

Community and faith groups condemn the rapid rise in prisoner suicide rates

Tuesday 2 January 2008

Human rights group Black Mental Health UK have added their voice to the growing numbers of community and faith organisation who have condemned the rapid rise in the numbers of suicides of people in prison over the last 12 months.

Government statistics indicate that black prisoners are currently in the system at a rate that is five times higher than that of white prisoners; this has led to fears that these latest stats will hit the black community hardest.

‘Clearly there are concerns about this and we need to have an ethnic breakdown of exactly who has died in prison in the last 12 months in order to establish current trends.

One suicide is one to many and we have seen figures on the over representation of ethnic minorities within prison settings but not been given any answers as to why this is not being addressed’ Lord Herman Ouseley, former head of the Chairman of the Commission For Racial Equality said.

The Ministry of Justice announcement has revealed that 93 people lost their lives last year and comes in tandem with a statement from The HLPR (Howard League for Penal Reform) which shows that 45 percent of those who died were either being held on remand, unsentenced or awaiting sentence after conviction.

‘It is disturbing to see that half of the people who have lost their lives in these institutions were not actually convicted of any crime but rather were on remand or awaiting sentencing,’ Rev Paul Grey, New Testament Church of God, Nuneatun branch said.

Penal reformers blamed overcrowding for the increase in deaths. HM Inspectorate of Prisons thematic review of mental health published last October showed staffing levels in prison mental health care are just one-third of what is needed with the majority of prisoners with mental health problems getting inadequate care and are being released with the same, or worse, problems.

‘It is not conducive to anyone’s mental well being to be behind bars, human potential was never meant to be locked away it was meant to released. The current models that are being used are flawed, if they weren’t’ then people staying in the system would not be dying,’ Rev Paul Grey, New Testament Church of God, Nuneatun said.

BMH UK have welcomed prisons minister Maria Eagle call for an inquiry into the reasons behind the increase, to look into measures to improve security for those suffering from mental health problems. ‘An inquiry is welcomed and urgently needed, what we must ensure is that there is appropriate and equal representation of all stakeholders, especially from communities group most adversely effected by this.

It is horrifying to think that there has been at least one death every week in 2007 in prison settings. We need an ethnic breakdown of these figures to gauge the extent of the problem so we can establish effective strategies to ensure that these figures come down.’ Matilda MacAttram director of Black Mental Health UK said.

For interviews please call M: 07852 182 750

Notes to the editor

* Black Mental Health UK is a human rights campaigns group established to address the over representation of African Caribbean’s within secure psychiatric care and raise awareness to address the stigma associated with mental health.

* African Caribbean’s are 44% more likely to be sectioned, 29% more likely to be forcibly restrained, 50% more likely to be placed in seclusion and make up 30% of in patients on medium secure psychiatric wards despite having similar rates of mental illness as British white people.

* African Caribbean’s make up 14% of the prison population but are less than 3% of the national population.

The Forum for Preventing Deaths in Custody report was published in September 2007

http://www.politics.co.uk/press-releases/bmhuk-community-and-faith-groups-condemn-rapid-rise-in-prisoner-suicide-rates-$483681.htm

The Destitution Trap

BNG — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 21:32:56 +0000

http://www.refugee-action.org.uk/campaigns/destitution/april09_mp_action.aspx

Please take action now to end destitution of refused asylum seekers.

An atrocity by stealth

BNG — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 21:28:03 +0000

Through my eyes

BNG — Sun, 19 Apr 2009 12:49:13 +0000

Alongside From War to Windrush, the Imperial War Museum is also launching a new online exhibition as part of the Their Past Your Future programme entitled Through My Eyes: Stories of Conflict, Belonging and Identity. The exhibition will illustrate the ways in which various twentieth century conflicts have made people rethink or reaffirm their own sense of identity and belonging. The online exhibition features a wide variety of personal stories from a range of different countries. Some explore the influence of the Empire and Commonwealth on personal choices to fight and serve, whilst other stories are from men, women and children forced to leave their own war-torn country and settle here in the UK.

The exhibition will be launched in two phases. The first, which goes live in June, includes stories from Windrush passengers, First World War volunteers, Kindertransport children, Basque evacuees, displaced persons from the Second World War, people affected by the Indian Partition and also those affected by the Mau Mau Uprising in Kenya. The second phase will be launched in the autumn and will include the experiences of Vietnamese boat people, refugees from Bosnia, refugees from Kosovo and survivors of the Rwandan genocide.

http://www.throughmyeyes.org.uk/?PHPSESSID=f5c4b3360f9d3729d5f6ba70e72a1256

From War to Windrush

BNG — Sun, 19 Apr 2009 12:39:30 +0000

To mark the sixtieth anniversary of the arrival of the MV Empire Windrush in Britain in 1948, this exhibition will tell the personal stories of the involvement of Black men and women from the West Indies and Britain in the First and Second World Wars.

http://london.iwm.org.uk/server/show/conEvent.2377