An open invitation from Imam Irfan Chishti MBE

Rochdale Community Forum 

In the past week and months Rochdale as a town has been maligned because of the actions of a minority of men. Their actions have triggered much discussion and debate locally and nationally and has lead to the far right targeting our town with the aim of damaging what are very good community relations. Each and every member of the Rochdale community is totally appalled and disgusted by the crimes that have been committed and whole heartedly condemn the perpetrators.

Despite the fact the Police have clearly stated that race is not an issue, as the men were from a Pakistani background, many have turned towards the Rochdale Pakistani community for answers.

The Rochdale Community Forum exists as a coalition of grassroots organisations from groups who have been working for several years in partnership with various agencies, focussing in the main with the large Asian Muslim community which exists in Rochdale. This CSE case has brought to light the urgent need for all communities within Rochdale to work together collectively to tackle this issue. Therefore the Rochdale Community Forum must extend to other community sectors and organisations.

We would like to invite groups through the Rochdale Online to join The Rochdale Community Forum and actively lead this campaign with us. This is a very complex area of work that requires open and honest collaboration and with this in mind we have approached experts in the field that have worked on this for many years. Safe and Sound in Derby are an established charitable organisation whose work has received national recognition and we hope to work together closely in the future. We are in discussion with their training enterprise, Just Whistle to inform this strategy and encourage best practice in safeguarding young people.

The magnitude of the crimes committed has exposed many shortcomings in our public sector services (LEA, Social Services, Police, CPS) as well as within the community. We all need to address these issues collectively, as one Rochdale community. We are therefore proposing a community initiative with the following three core aims:

• To shed a positive light back onto Rochdale
• To work collaboratively with all Rochdale communities and grassroots organisations to tackle this issue
• To use the outcomes of this initiative as a possible blueprint for tackling on-street grooming nationally