Dear Sir / Madam

I read with stunned disbelief the comments made by a number of people about the £118,000 contract awarded, by the Council, to JET to support people in the Normanton area securing jobs.

 I thought Derby, with its 182 different nationalities, and long tradition of multi-culturalism, was a little more tolerant of the plight of people who entered this country legally and who have taken the opportunity to seek a better life for themselves. In many cases they have found employment  in local factories on low wages doing jobs in poor conditions which the non-immigrant population would never consider taking. Most of them want to come here to work, regardless of what the job is – not simply to exploit state benefits as popularly mis-understood by the media-fuelled frenzy.

The ill-informed stereotyping of all East Europeans and suggestion that they are disproportionately driving our internal economic troubles is a form of bigotry and racism which I thought we had eliminated decades ago.

Despite this,  living here is many times better than the overt racism and abuse they ( particularly those in the Roma community)  were subjected to in their home country.  I just hope that their dreams of a better future are not dashed by the petty-mindedness of the few vocal “little Englanders” and that they never  regret trusting in the traditional British spirit of inclusiveness.