'One-to-One' is an organisation which is working to alert the police and local councils to, what they feel, can be an intimidating process of reporting a hate crime.
They provide training sessions to make clear the perspective of the people affected. Watch one of these sessions and hear interviews with the VIP (Valuing and Including People) team below.
Starts with speaker: “Please welcome the VIP group…”
Naomi Luke, Head of Training and Development said: “We were asked to develop something for the hate crime forum to do with issues around disabilities. So we spoke to lots of our members and we found out that a lot of the problems were when they moved out into the community- when they were living alone. So this is based on some of their experiences.”
The speaker then starts off the play…
“This is Richard; Richard is a 38year old man who has a learning difficulty. Richards mother has died suddenly and he had to be moved urgently from his family hoem to a residential home.”
Richard is then shown signing his documents. Some youths are then shown bullying Richard and his friend. All Richard is saying is ‘leave me alone’.
Everyone is then lined up telling their own personal accounts.
John Barry, One-to-One group member, says: “My story is a true story. Within a period of nine months - we had a total of 34 broken windows. We had lighted paper through the letter box, we had a lighted carrier bag through…I had bare feet and I got badly burnt. Although we look alright on the outside; inside it still hurts like anything.”
Sheila Barry, One-to-One group member, says: “Its important yeah, its lets them see that they can tell someone and it also helps them to know that what we’ve been through, we don’t want them to go through it.”
So the message to people that think they might have been targeted by a hate crime – what would it be?
Mrs Luke, says: “To report it basically, because the police are taking it a lot more seriously. So come forward, don’t think ‘oh it was only a little incident’. Report it in the early stages.”
