Action Sheet 3

Ask your local council to pass a resolution and adopt an action plan against racism

Suggested Aim: To persuade your Local Council that it should participate in activities supporting the World Conference Against Racism, by hosting a local community consultation on the themes of the World Conference to develop recommendations to Council for a local plan of action against racism, racial discrimination, and intolerance.

Suggested Strategy:

• find out what Council is already doing
• Develop a proposal to put to Council, for Council to host a community consultation, in support of the World Conference Against Racism, with the aim of developing a "community declaration against racism" and a "community plan of action" to ensure that racism is eliminated from the local community.
• Ask Council to consider erecting “Refugees Welcome Here” signs throughout the municipality
• Invite other community organizations to co-sponsor the approach to Council: such as local churches and religious communities, local human rights groups, migrant communities, Indigenous communities, refugee or welfare groups, women's organizations
• Meet with local state/federal members of parliament and ask them to write a letter to Council to support your proposal for a community consultation.
• Decide what contribution your group could make and offer to provide this contribution (eg promote the public meeting, arrange a venue, provide background materials, assist on a Council working group for the community consultation etc)
• Arrange a meeting with the Mayor, elected Councillors, and Senior Council staff to seek support for the community consultation and plan of action.
• Seek media interest and support for the idea of the local community addressing questions of racism and community harmony in the local community.

What a letter to Council might look like:

"Dear …

We are writing about the World Conference Against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance, which will be held in August/September of this year in Durban, South Africa. The purpose of this letter is to request that Council convene a meeting of interested community organizations and the public to address the themes of the World Conference as they relate to our local community life. The aim we would suggest for the meeting is to draw up a local declaration against racism and a local plan of action to promote harmony, tolerance and understanding in our community.

We are sure that you share with us the hope that our local community life will always be open and tolerant for all the citizens of our beautiful city/municipality/shire. We feel that having open community discussion on issues of racism and tolerance, and how to address any issues that might exist in our local community will be a wonderful contribution we can make to the worldwide work to eradicate racism. More importantly, openly addressing this issue in this way will make sure that our community will always be a harmonious and tolerant one.

We will contact you shortly to seek a meeting with you to discuss this proposal in more detail. Extensive information on the World Conference Against Racism is available at the web site of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights:

www.unhchr.ch

What a Declaration Against Racism Might Look Like:

A declaration against racism should reflect the views and approaches of each local community, so that there is no particular words that must be used. However, the following example may be useful, if it would be of assistance to have a 'model' of what a local declaration might look like.

(Modelled on the declaration on a tolerant and open society adopted by the Australian Parliament)

Declaration on Racial Tolerance

On behalf of the people of the … of …

And to mark the Third World Conference Against Racism, being held this year in Durban, South Africa

Council reaffirms:

• Its commitment to work for the opportunity for all in our community to enjoy equal rights and to be treated with equal respect, regardless of race, colour, creed or origin
• Its commitment to working for, and maintaining, a community which will always be wholly free of discrimination on grounds of race, colour, creed or origin
• Its commitment to reconciliation with the Indigenous community in our area, and to working to redress the social and economic disadvantage they face
• Its commitment to working for a united and harmonious community with a shared commitment to the well-being of all the people of our …

Council condemns racial intolerance in any form as incompatible with the kind of community we are and want to be.

Developing a Community Plan of Action

A community plan of action can only be developed on the basis of community consultation as to the needs and experiences of the local community. The suggested community consultation would provide a basis for the development of such a plan of action. One way of organizing a community consultation would be a full-day meeting, divided into several segments:

1. A plenary session introducing participants to the day and the issues that are being discussed;
2. Subsequent parallel workshops addressing separate issues in greater detail, with discussion of experience and "recommendations for action" as outcomes of the workshop discussion.
3. A final plenary, to follow-up the issues raised and finalise the draft community plan of action that would be launched by the Council

The themes that could be addressed by the separate workshops could be based around the themes of the World Conference Against Racism:

• Sources, causes, forms and contemporary manifestations of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance.
• Victims of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance.
• Measures of prevention, education and protection aimed at the eradication of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance, at the national, regional and international levels.
• Provision of effective remedies, recourses, redress, [compensatory] and other measures, at the national, regional and international levels.
• Strategies to achieve full and effective equality, including international cooperation and enhancement of the UN and other international mechanisms in combating racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance, and how these should be followed through.

Outcomes of the workshops would be reported back to the full meeting, and could be compiled and submitted to Council to draw up a plan of action that it would approve, and then share with the community. Given that World Conferences Against Racism generally occur every ten years, the plan of action might address a ten year time-frame.

Top of this page

Next Action Sheet

Return to Action Kit page

This kit is supported by the following organisations (in alphabetical order) in April 2001: Amnesty International Australia, Australian Catholic Social Justice Council, Australian Lawyers for Human Rights, Coalition Against Racism WA, Human Rights Council of Australia Inc., Quaker Service Australia, The Religious Society of Friends in Australia (Quakers),Western Australians for Racial Equality, WA Social Justice Commission - Uniting Church in Australia.