RESPONDING TO RACIAL VIOLENCE

TAKE AN ARTS-BASED BREAK AND ENABLE ACCESS TO PSYCHOSOCIAL SUPPORT FOR OTHERS

We need to continue on this path. With our young people empowered to lead.

SUPPORT OUR ORGANISATIONAL SURVIVAL AND COLLECTIVE HEALING AND SOLIDARITY

eduSOIL CIC is a 100% volunteer-led, immigrant-founded, non-profit operating with zero core institutional funding since August 2025. To keep providing urgent cross-community psychosocial support, trauma-informed arts education, and safe digital spaces during moments of acute crisis, we have a small allocation of Arts Council NI funding, in-support from Queen’s University Belfast and are relying entirely on community backing. Support our team and help us reach others by taking some Art For Change time for yourself today, and by sharing this resource across your networks. Please consider backing our live fundraising appeal or sharing it with your personal and professional circles:

👉 Back the Arts-Based Cross-Community Support Campaign on Crowdfunder

The recent civil unrest, riots, and racial tensions on our streets leave many of us feeling deeply isolated, anxious, or overwhelmed. This wave of racist violence has directly disrupted the only project for which we had secured formal funding—a dedicated program designed to bring together young people from diverse cross-community backgrounds with multi-disciplinary artists from equally diverse global traditions to lead arts-based civic action. Despite this disruption, and despite the fact that none of the core organisers who have built this initiative are salaried or possess financially secure lives or futures in Northern Ireland, we refused to step back. We have mobilised immediately because we feel an urgent duty to help others who are deeply affected by these events. While navigating fear for our own physical safety, we stand side-by-side with partners and friends who were born here in Northern Ireland—individuals who are themselves completely distraught, exhausted, and ashamed of this wave of violence. Year on year, we demonstrate that we can face and overcome recurring racial hostility. We respond actively with deep empathy, shared pain, and unyielding cross-community solidarity. To empower young people who when asked “What is affecting your wellbeing that you wish to take action on-through the arts?” respond with truth and power, talent and determination- shining a light on harsh truths and leading the way forward on our path of restorative justice, peace and solidarity.

Click on the image below to see and hear how young people from ACSONI responded when affected by the violence in 2024- with a powerful story of change and a heartbreaking and morally motivating song.

You do not have to process any current anxiety or difficult emotions alone. We have converted our framework into an immediate, self-paced digital peacebuilding intervention. Use the embedded step-by-step framework below to ground your nervous system, process heavy emotions, and channel your reflections into our permanent digital peace galleries.

(If you wish to process these emotions live alongside others in a safe, moderated digital room, you are also warmly invited to book your slot for our upcoming free Art For Change Online: Interactive Sessions.)