14 Students from Years 9,10&11 attended a diversity conference, focusing on community cohesion and civic participation.

The first workshop was led by Imam Mahmoud, who was dubbed the ‘Hero Imam’ after the terrorist attack on Finsbury Park Mosque in 2017 and who mentors young Muslims and worked on bringing communities together, and a reformed former member of a far right organisation who is now committed to exposing and eradicating far right extremism in the UK.

They presented on:

● Islamic values – tackling different forms of oppression e.g. racism, sexism, Islamophobia, anti-Semitism, terrorism and extremism.

● Theological view of communities, the role of the citizen and how communities can work together to tackle extremism and hateful ideologies.

● What is far-right extremism? The impact of conspiracy theories, why people get involved in far-right extremism and finally the challenges we face and what we can do to tackle hate as communities and individuals.

The second workshop focused on civic participation and community building and was led by the Patchwork Foundation, a UK-based charity committed to strengthening democracy and is focused on engaging young people from communities and individuals that are traditionally underrepresented. The session outlined the building blocks for creating change, Political advocacy work and work with local communities.