26/01/02 At the midweek meeting, we agreed to get the group to record their opinions on some recurring topics, dual identity, living in Northern Ireland, inclusion and education. Louanne brought some display paper and pens, which we gave to the individual members to write down their thoughts or personal experiences of the different topics. Each member of the group then presented their notes or stories to everyone as summarised below. Namrata: Northern Ireland is misrepresented by the news, it is a much nicer place to live than most people think. People rarely see the good side. The younger generation are more open about different religions and are more comfortable talking about things. It is wrong for countries not to recognise qualifications gained in a different country. It is unfair for countries to expect well-educated immigrants to begin their training again from scratch. Samuel: Older generations rarely mixed, finding out about other religions and cultures was seen as disrespectful to your own. Mixed marriages were frowned upon and discouraged. We are all encouraged to feel pride in our country, religion, culture and family, but older generations have been suspicious of those with a different identity, perhaps seeing the pride in a different identity as a threat or insult to their own. In Ghana, particularly at election time the two big African and Indian parties taunt and ridicule each other, the two communities become antagonistic to each other and there is a lot of discrimination. Samuel was used to quite a lot of discrimination and racial abuse from the African community in Ghana but has had very little racial abuse since coming to Belfast, although he thinks some of the Indian community look down on him because he isn't from India. Nicholas: Nicholas thought the film should make people think about how they should treat each other with respect, especially adults. Just because you are very proud of belonging to a big group, you shouldn't taunt others or think you are better than anyone else is. You should never be disrespectful about things that other people are very proud of. Shpresa: Shpresa talked about education in N. Ireland being much less strict than in Kosovo. She finds socialising here usually involves going to a pub, with her friends back in Kosovo, they had more fun playing games and sports and having parties. She had friends from different religions, it was just Serbians who controlled everything and did not want to integrate with Albanians. Nitika: Nitika talked about her memories of India, the different animals, spices, taxis and the mostly vegetarian cuisine, which was nice but she still liked to bring pot noodles. Kudze: Kudze's presentation was on the flag of Zimbabwe and the symbolism of the colours. Angela