UK: Newly Appointed Communities Minister Visits UK’s Biggest Gurdwara To Condemn Racism

UK Communities Minister Lord Bourne with members of the Southall Sikh Community

LONDON, UK—Britain’s new Prime Minister Theresa May has appointed Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth as the Minister for faith and community cohesion.  On his first visit in this role, Lord Bourne chose to attend the largest Gurdwara in England to condemn racism and hate crimes to the Sikh Community.  The Government has also published its new Hate Crime Action plan to tackle prejudice throughout the UK.  This action plan includes a £2.4 million funding scheme for places of worship to provide security measures and protection equipment.  The scheme will be open for bids for ten weeks.

In Southall, while visiting the largest Sikh Gurdwara on July 27, Lord Bourse spoke with members of the Sikh communities about their concerns.  Representatives from religious communities have raised concerns about crimes, which range from graffiti to arson attacks.

After speaking with members of the Sikh community, Communities Minister Lord Bourne said:

“The recent hate crimes are absolutely repulsive and those who seek to create division and exploit current events for their own agendas must be shown that racism is wrong.

“I’m privileged to listen to people in Southall and want to learn from them so we can apply this in other areas across the country.”

Kiran Kaur, Nehemiah Community Worker based at the Gurdwara, said:

“I lived around here for years and never knew there was a church around the corner from our Gurdwara.

“Now there’s an open door policy. We’ve started to interact with each other and we can both go back to our places of worship and spread the word about events and activities.”

The Department for Communities and Local Government has provided the Near Neighbours programme with £9.5million since 2011 to fund community-led local projects.

In this time, through its small grants programme, Near Neighbours has funded 1100 projects, benefiting more than 1 million people in some of England’s most diverse communities.

From teaching coding to girls in North London, a pop up community café in Leeds to community gardening in Luton, the programme covers a broad range of activities across the arts, the environment and sport, with over 50% of projects offering new skills to the unemployed.

Steven Derby, Director of Interfaith Matters said:

“The work that Near Neighbours does has been so beneficial to local communities.

“I make connections across London, from working with clergy from seven world faiths in Westminster to focusing on the strictly orthodox Jewish community in Hackney– all of the projects are going excellently.”

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