Youth and Faith Community Conference at Deeplish Community Centre

Youth and Faith Community Conference

The second annual Youth and Faith Community Conference at Deeplish Community Centre took place on Saturday (8 April) to promote community cohesion and connect young people with positive projects.

The conference also provides a platform for community and faith leaders to come together.

Sohail Ahmad, manager of this project, said: “We were pleased to organise our second annual event to engage and to be committed to our community cohesion approach in addressing the needs of the local community and young people.”

Mr Ahmad also welcomed Police and Crime Commissioner, Tony Lloyd, and thanked him for his continued participation and support in many projects in Rochdale. He was also thanked by community leaders.

Yasin Khan, Community Cohesion lead officer from Rochdale Council, delivered a presentation giving advice on how best to protect children and young people from crimes.

He said: “The best way is to engage with young people and provide better opportunities for them in education and youth activities.”

He further explained that a lot of vulnerable children are sitting home in isolation, adding "if we don’t keep an eye and engage with them, then they can be easy targeted by extreme groups through social media".

Mr Khan also mentioned hate crimes are on the increase yet only a quarter are reported. He suggested hate crime can be addressed through working with the community police and by people of different faiths to working together to promote peace and social harmony in the town.

Father Daly, priest at Our Lady and St. Joseph’s Parish, Heywood, also spoke bringing an olive branch from his garden to share to mark peace, unity and respect for all faiths and communities.

He talked his experience of visiting Neeli Mosque on Hare Street with children from a school as one of his highlights of this year.

He said: “Ignorance can be innocent but if left undone it can fester. When we meet people of other faiths, it strengthens our faith.”

Dr A K Shakoor spoke about multifaith and orientalism, explaining: “[The] young generation needs to know about history and positive contributions made by non-Muslims about Islam.

“It’s very important that our young people are informed of the history as well as present research. Many non-Muslims experts have written about Islam and research shows that this is a sign of respect and promotes peace and unity amongst people from different beliefs, faiths and cultures.”

Dr Shakoor added: “If we love for other people what we love for ourselves, this world would be a better place.”

Inspector Andy Riley, from Greater Manchester Police, said: “Rochdale Borough is a great town to live, establish business and work. We could not the police town without great community participation.”

He also explained no-one should tolerate being a victim of hate crime, urging them to pick up the phone and report it.

Inspector Riley also met with group of young people to discuss their experiences and provided information and advice.

Chairman of the Rochdale Multifaith Partnership, Robin Parker, with his colleague Saiqa Naz, a health professional, informed participants how to get involved in faith partnership meetings and of the work being done at local level.

He recalled his experiences of being at demonstrations and the co-operation between police and community, saying: “We are getting to know much more about each other, which helps in promoting community cohesion.”

Maulana Abdus Samad, a local young scholar and teacher from Rochdale Boys’ School, reminded people to look at how they are fulfilling their responsibility.

He commented: “Help someone today and someone will help you tomorrow: it’s the way of the world. We need to fulfil it properly regardless of whether we have faith or not.”

He emphasised the importance of unity, tolerance, accountability and responsibility towards each other.

Local ward councillor Mohammed Zaman thankedall speakers, participants and staff.

He said: “An act of kindness is never wasted.

"Deeplish Community Centre is heavily engaged in promoting messages of peace, race, community cohesion, health and well-being and caring.”

The seminar was concluded with a message of peace and unity from Multicultural Arts and Media Centre’s Mohammed Sarwar, who read a Nasheed (a work of vocal music).