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The Minority Ethnic Community Health and
Social Wellbeing Project (formerly
Minority Ethnic Health Liaison Project)
has been running at the Multi-Cultural
Resource Centre (NI) since 1997. The
project's work involves breaking down the
barriers experienced by minority ethnic
communities and individuals in accessing
health and social care services.
A considerable proportion of the original
project's work involved promoting
effective communication between health
and social service practitioners and the
minority ethnic communities
including the provision of health and
social care information in accessible
formats. The project was aware that there
is a considerable Bangladeshi community
in Northern Ireland, however in assessing
language need little information was
available regarding how best to
effectively communicate. Would
translating leaflets into Bengali help?
Did the community speak Bengali or
Sylheti? Were the community mostly first
or second generation? Is the community
mostly fluent in English or not?
What were the community's
priorities in receiving information? The
need for local research to answer these
questions emerged.
It is around thirty years since the first
Bangladeshis came to live in Northern
Ireland and the community has grown to an
estimated 450--500. In this time, until
this research, a listening session with
the community had never been
conducted.
The actual opportunity for research
emerged from legislation initiatives
included in the Good Friday Agreement.
The equality duty on Public Authorities
(Section 75) contained in the Act brought
a new context in which designated public
authorities are obliged to promote
equality of opportunity. It therefore
brought the project's work within a
statutory remit and obliged statutory
bodies to consult and have due regard to
evidence of adverse impact of their
policies. This together with the
establishment of a Human Rights
Commission and a consultation process for
a Bill of Rights for Northern Ireland,
also brought about the Social Justice
Initiative fund from NIVT. The project
used an award from the fund to hold focus
groups with the Bangladeshi and the Latin
American communities.
The research was highly successful and
the methodologies used could be regarded
as an effective model for initial
research with emerging communities in
Northern Ireland. The research was also
conducted on a minimal budget and, due to
the Bill of Rights consultation deadline
and the start of Ramadan, under a tight
time scale. It is important to recognise
both the value of the research and also
its limitations. Clearly further research
in addition to appropriate action will be
needed with the Bangladeshi community,
and others, if the process of promoting
equality of access to public services is
to be effective.
Daniel Holder
December 2000
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