On a grey lunchtime last week I made my way to Vaughan College, Leicester University’s Institute of Lifelong Learning, for the East Midlands Economic Network Community Bridge Building Conference (EMEN), supported by Leicester Comedy Festival. Lunch was provided and gave a good opportunity to network with others who had come from the local area and from around the country. There were representatives from various organisations including Voluntary Action Leicester, Charnwood Arts, Soft Touch, Leicester City Council, Youth Voice, De Montfort University, and the Institute of Community Cohesion.

The afternoon conference was introduced and chaired by Bernard Greaves (EMEN) who spoke about the good cross-cultural relationships at leadership level in the city, but stated that, sadly in Leicester, whilst people are tolerant, relationships between different groups only go skin-deep. I would suggest there are some notable exceptions, particularly between some different faith groups, and in schools where children simply do not register the difference between white, brown, black, headscarf, crucifix, skullcap etc. This was certainly my experience whilst working at Sir Jonathan North Community College in October and November of 2007.

There were three case studies of different ways of encouraging community cohesion:

• Jay Poppat, a sports practitioner, spoke of the importance of sport in bringing together different communities.
• Paul Barrand, a painter and community artist, spoke of his experience working with young people in Coalville
• John Ryan, a comedian, spoke about the use of comedy in bringing people together through sharing experiences and looking at the commonalities

Hamza Vayani, the Chief Executive of Youth Voice, spoke about the importance of strategy and structure and the tension between developing national common values whilst not losing individual and community identity. He stressed the importance of visible social justice.Thilo Boeck from the Centre for Social Action At De Montfort University gave a short talk on community cohesion from an academic viewpoint, asking some interesting questions about wider social issues and their implications for community cohesion. For example, he spoke about the concept of home and belonging and whilst many people can choose home, others do not have the financial capacity to move house, nor the social capacity to change their neighbourhood.

Daljit Kaur from the Institute of Community Cohesion was for me the highlight of the conference. I spoke to her when I arrived at the conference and discovered she was inolved in the development of the Taking Forward Community Cohesion in Leicester report which highlighted the importance young people’s and women’s participation in civic activity and decision making. She spoke of the lack of values in leadership, she spoke about the importance of transforming gatekeepers, key information-holders in the community, into gateways, and she spoke of vision and leadership needing to come from the grassroots.

Having attended this conference, I feel confidently happy that ICLS fits squarely into the national community cohesion agenda of moderation and integration. However, I feel strongly that the motivation for community cohesioin agenda should be driven by a desire to see a broader equality of race, gender, ability, belief, age and sexuality, and ultimately to serve the purposes of those working for social justice.

On Friday afternoon, His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales visited Leicester’s St Philip’s Centre, an ecumenical Christian centre for interfaith study. Examples of the activities of St Philip’s were demonstrated in St Philip’s Church, including an interfaith football match in the hall, police faith literacy training, a women’s interfaith panel on ecology, and the young adult’s training programme, ICLS.

The day was full of confusion, excitement and a sense of achievement. The group of ICLS alumni and other young adults who had come to speak about ICLS and demonstrate some of its activities, started with an activity analysing the week’s newspapers, drawing out positive stories and identifying negative ones. This activity was abandoned as we were asked to vacate the room for a royal cup of tea. I realised afterwards that this was where the ICLS biscuits had disappeared to, as Clare said when I was putting in my expenses form, “forget ‘he shook my hand’… he ate my biscuit!”

As we all know, the best parties happen in the kitchen. So the ICLS alumni, assorted young adults, a couple of senior police officers (Rik Basra, Paul Smith) and I stood around drinking tea and chatting about the possibilities of ICLS. We were eventually allowed back into our room to continue with activities. We settled into a game of ‘talking stick’ (except we were using a stone). This is an active listening exercise. I wish we had had a tape recorder because some of the comments were so filled with vitality and hope. I particularly liked what Shobha Gosa had to say, an intern at St Philip’s Centre and a MA student, studying Youth Work and Community Development with Applied Theology; “Young people are not empty vessels to be filled. We have our own wisdom. People should listen.”

When Prince Charles was eventually ushered into our room, we were sitting calmly, a group of seven young adults, talking about our potential. I explained what ICLS is and then we started chatting about what we do… I felt he asked shrewd questions (well, perhaps not the one about swallowing canal water) and was really listening to the answers. Hopefully we will be able to forge a link with the Prince’s Trust who do a lot of good work, not only with under 18s, but also with those young adults aspiring to start their own businesses.

Hello, welcome to the ICLS blog. This blog will keep you up-to-date with all of ICLS Leicester’s activities and news, views and comment, and pointers to exciting intercultural projects in Leicester and beyond!