NICEM North West

General information

Migrant Centre NI began as a consortium of UNISON, the Irish Congress of Trade Unions and NICEM funded by the Big Lottery Fund under the Welcome House Project from 2010 – 2013.

The overall aim is to tackle racism and eliminate barriers against new and settled migrant communities in NI. While we do not currently have core funding we continue to work towards our aim.

From 2010-2013 we provided bilingual advisors to address the needs of the migrant community in Northern Ireland on a range of issues including benefits entitlement, education, housing, employment, immigration and hate crime.

We also provided leadership and development opportunities through training, volunteering programmes and ESOL classes, both free and OCN certified. Our work also extended out into the community working with Black and Minority Ethnic organisations on capacity building, governance training and policy work.

Our core funding from the Big Lottery completed in 2013 and disappointingly we were not able to secure funding from any other source, which resulted in the loss of our generalist and immigration advice services, our leadership and development work and our community development work.

The current focus of our work is supporting victims of racist hate crime and incidents through our bilingual support workers. The service covers all of Northern Ireland and is delivered in partnership with Victim Support NI, Ballymena Inter Ethnic Forum and the Police Service of NI.

We are also partners in a EU Commission funded project Good Practice Plus, which not only allows us to provide support to victims but has given us the capacity to train and develop Good Practice police and prosecutors from 10 EU countries. For more information on this project please visit www.goodpracticeplus.squarespace.com.

We also continue to promote good relations through our Belonging Project. A multimedia photography project and workshops that facilitates discussions about identity, migrant experiences and community in a non threatening and safe environment. If you would like to know more about this project and how you can get involved please visit www.thebelongingproject.org.

For more information about our work or if you would like to get involved please do not hesitate to contact us. We currently rely on the willingness of our amazing volunteers and interns to keep working to tackle racism and eliminate barriers.