VALE of Glamorgan Council leader, Cllr Neil Moore, recently addressed colleagues and public service leaders to mark Wear Red Day, pledging the organisation’s support to the Show Racism the Red Card cause.

The event, now in its fifth year, denotes a national day of action encouraging schools, businesses and individuals to wear red to help raise awareness and to make a stand against racism.

Staff and public service leaders at the Public Services Board meeting were invited to take part.

Cllr Moore said: “We stand here today because, sadly discrimination still takes place, despite the fact that Show Racism the Red Card does a fantastic job in raising awareness of this issue.

“As a council, we embrace diversity, and values such as equality and respecting others are central to our ethos.

"Once again today, we again pledge our support to this important organisation and express our gratitude for the work they do to tackle what is an ugly problem.

“In recent years, Show Racism the Red Card Wales has observed an increase in racist attitudes and negative stereotyping that occurs in society and unacceptably in primary and secondary schools too, so the work they do remains as relevant as ever.

"We will stand hand in hand until racism and other forms of discrimination is stamped out within our society.”

The Vale of Glamorgan Council is the first Welsh local authority to have begun working with the charity, funding their workshops since 2008.

They have continued to provide these sessions every year since. In 2017/18, the charity delivered 35 workshops across 17 Vale of Glamorgan schools, reaching a total of 1,235 pupils.

Feedback for the sessions have been overwhelmingly positive, with both pupils and teachers reporting a significant increase in their understanding around racism.

One Vale teacher said: “Pupils are more confident of using the correct terms and they learned valuable lessons about stereotyping and making judgements based on appearance.”