Government hopes to breathe new life into a community based-organisation which in the late 1990s made several ground-breaking recommendations on race relations in Bermuda.

The brainchild of the Human Rights Commission in June 1998, the Citizens Uprooting Racism in Bermuda (CURB) was an amalgamation of various organisations including the HRC, National Association for Reconciliation, Amnesty International and the Commission for Unity and Racial Equality and made several recommendations to Government to stamp out racism.

These included the abolition of private schools, orientation programmes for non-Bermudians, the creation of a register of jobs held by non-Bermudians and the compulsory teaching of black and Bermudian history. In the Throne Speech yesterday, the Duke of York said Government acknowledged that race relations continued to impact the lives of Bermudians.

For this reason the Government will facilitate and support the Human Rights Commission, CURE and Non-Government Organisations in the major race relations initiative ? Citizens Uprooting Racism in Bermuda (CURB) ? which will be the vehicle tasked with recommending to the Government tangible, achievable strategies for the elimination of racism in Bermuda.

Quoting the BIC Report, Prince Andrew noted that: ?It is fair to say, that the racial question and the implementations that flow out of its consideration have been an ever-present, although seldom acknowledged feature of the Bermudian social, economic and political landscape throughout Bermuda?s history.?

The report went on to recommend that, the ?Government should lead a process whereby the diversity of Bermuda is celebrated and where opportunity is equal and where there is genuine social unity.?

Chairman of the Human Rights Commission, Rod Attride-Stirling, yesterday said CURB, during its short period of existence in the late 1990s, did really excellent work in addressing the various race-related issues and achieved quite.

Unfortunately CURB withered away due to lack of funding as administrative support costs money.

He said it was important to provide administrative support to enable CURB to continue doing its work. Mr. Attride-Stirling said it was also a question of reviewing what was done previously and once again getting the community involved in discussing what racial issues exist and addressing them.

?The reality is that if we compare race relations in Bermuda to anywhere else, race relations here are excellent, but we have an impression living here that race relations are horrible but they are not and have improved over the last 10 or so years,? he said.

However, he felt there was still a long way to go and he thought getting an organisation like CURB up and running was a good way to get solutions from the ground up as opposed from the top down.

He said while it was important for Government to do what they need too, they would get much better results if they had the community involved in these discussions. ?From the HRC perspective, we are very interested in seeing a grassroots level organisation come to the fore to deal with racism,? he said, adding that racism should be dealt with openly and actively.

The executive officer of CURE, Myra Virgil, said the organisation was ecstatic at the news that CURB would make a comeback.

Ms Virgil said CURE was willing to work with anyone who strives towards the protection of rights.

She also felt that the only reason CURB worked back in the 1990s was because the community participated and hoped that this time around, CURB would have the longevity that the subject of racism deserved. An amendment to the CURE legislation will also be introduced to require large companies to review their policies to ensure that racial barriers to opportunity are removed.

Also mentioned in the Throne Speech was the study on Young Black Men in Bermuda which was finalised in October. Cabinet will consider the recommendations of the report with the intent of implementing strategies to assist that segment of the community.