Encompass at the Mulberry Youth Conference
Encompass was thrilled to be invited to the annual Mulberry Youth Conference at the Mulberry School in Tower Hamlets, London on Thursday 3rd April, entitled ‘Diversity, Sustainability, Harmony’.
Following an exciting and insightful morning of presentations and discussions from a range of speakers including Shami Chakrabarti from Liberty, Tony Juniper from Friends of the Earth, Reverend Dez Brown from Spark2Live and Paul Heritage, founder of Afroreggae, Encompass ran an interactive workshop on stereotypes with 24 students from various schools across the UK. This involved being given a particular label and treating each other according to this label while completing a task. While there was a lot of fun to be had by all those participating, they also went away with some serious and thought-provoking messages about the consequences for individuals and for society of labelling and stereotyping.
What made this day even better was being joined by Encompass alumni Jenifer Yeasmin from the 3rd Journey of Understanding, Rijia Begum from Diversity in London and Nathan Muller from the 7th Journey of Understanding. Not only was this an interesting day full of interesting activities for them to get involved in, but it also provided a wonderful opportunity for Encompass alumni from different programmes to meet with each other, exchange stories and experiences, and talk about their ideas.
Thanks to the Mulberry School for organising such a fantastic event, and extra special thanks to our alumni for coming along and showing their support!
Acknowledgement: the ‘Labels’ exercise was adapted from a guide provided by the Council of Europe.
Posted Friday April 4, 2008
