Note: There are a few connection glitches in this recording. Hopefully, it won’t affect your enjoyment too much.

Racism and refugees with Nathaniel Jennings

Nathaniel, Area Mobiliser for OMF International, has worked alongside Embrace NI “a group of Christians working together to promote positive responses to people seeking asylum, refugees, migrant workers and people from minority ethnic backgrounds in Northern Ireland.” We’ve come a long way as a society in tackling racism, but sadly it still exists – quite often in

Nathaniel opens up about his own experiences, and what changes he’s seen in his 10 years living in Northern Ireland. As a Christian, Nathaniel’s interested in how the church, in particular, can constructively talk about topics of race, including BLM, immigration and diversity as well as work to eradicate racist attitudes.

https://grace-community.church/programme/everyone-welcome

In 2008, Pete Kernoghan visited Thailand and came across the world of sex trafficking for the first time. Stand Out International — an early model for No More Traffic — began with the help of Viva Networks and Chab Dai.

2012 marked No More Traffik being registered as a charity with its focus on raising awareness around modern slavery here in Northern Ireland.

Human trafficking is a reality in our society, and it’s happening not far from our homes. So what can we do about it? Pete shows us what we should look out for and how we can report suspicious behaviour.

We finish off the episode by looking at how ethical storytelling plays a part in navigating this subject.

https://grace-community.church/programme/modern-slavery

Football, school and community with Neil Megaw and Gary McCoo Neil Megaw is chairman of Richhill Amalgamated Football Club and works as a principal in Newtownhamilton High School. Gary McCoo — born and raised in Richhill — is also a key part of RAFC, and runs Richhill’s Facebook page. Just a couple of days before recording, Armagh I awarded Gary Sports Person of the Year Award.

Both men are deeply involved in life in the village. In this episode, they reflect on the effect of COVID on the life of schools, sport and local business, but also how the community stepped up to work through the pandemic.

We’re recording this in lockdown. It’s been a year of trying to cope with and understand one of the worst pandemics the world has known.

It’s a multifaceted crisis that’s affecting so many professions. We’re looking at it from the point of view of the local practice, the hospital and the pharmaceutical bio-molecular level of the virus and vaccine themselves.

Lynsey and Jo are both practice nurses. Lynsey Lucas has been using social media to inform the community of the importance of doing our bit.

Joanne Garland has worked in the COVID-Centres as well as working on the frontline in ICU and faced all the emotions and fears of individuals and families at the worst times.

Sunil Parthasarathy has spent his life studying life at a molecular level and has worked with viruses themselves in the laboratory.

https://grace-community.church/programme/hands-face-space

Attila was born in Transylvania, Romania (previously Hungary). A self-proclaimed nerd, he’s a software engineer who specialises in accessibility.

In the last few years he moved to Dublin and became close friends with our producer (and this episode’s host) Andrew.

Spending many years time working creating websites and apps, he’s seen how attitudes and behaviours on the internet have changed throughout the years. He takes us through his thoughts on how we create a culture of decency and care on the World Wide Web from the point of view of content creators and social media users.

https://grace-community.church/programme/the-internet-of-good-manners

Journalism and politics with Peter Cardwell Peter grew up in Richhill then got into Oxford which resulted in a career in journalism with the Times, Newsnight and more, alongside Jeremy Paxman, Piers Morgan and David Dimbleby.

Journalism opened him up to the world of politics and in the last few years, he got the opportunity to work in the Northern Ireland Office and as a special advisor (SPAD) to the Secretary of State, James Brokenshire – who oversaw the opening of Stormont at the beginning of 2020.

He takes us behind the scenes of Stormont and the experiences of working alongside politicians. Surrounded by opinions, he says it’s important to not just know what you believe, but why you believe it.

https://grace-community.church/programme/behind-the-scenes-of-power

Richhill man Michael moved to Dublin in the early 2000s to work with Christian Aid. During this time he travelled around the globe to places such as Kenya and India, where he was struck by the effects of divisive structures on society.

While in Dublin he began to work with the small church-planting initiative Ignite Network and Urban Junction — a youth and community project.

The diverse backgrounds their work has attracted has caused them to re-examine what’s important and find real joy in the ​“grey” areas.

https://grace-community.church/programme/outside-the-building

Church and Mission Co-ordinator at Evangelical Alliance, Donna Jennings’s life changed with the arrival of her son, Micah. Diagnosed with ASD, he forced her to challenge how we approach ​“normal”.

As we endeavour to do better in light of culture’s lens what needs to change, in terms of community, relationships, to adjust what we see as normal?

Throughout the years, attitude towards disability has been cruel or ignorant. Maybe there’s good intentions, but what if we just need better conversations and openness?

Donna’s story has impacted many people. She works with Tio Associates: an organisation that shines a light on intellectual disability.

https://grace-community.church/programme/impairment-and-humanity