Long term project to train youth workers

4.58.18pm UTC (GMT +0000) Tue 9th Jan 2007

Bradford North Area Committee has allocated more than £26,000 to a project designed to help youth workers and young people break down barriers across the ethnic and cultural divide.

Cllr David Ward, the chair of the committee said,

" We did not want to use this money on the usual array of short-life project. We wanted to invest in the future and training people who work with young people is a good way to do this.

This project will initially train youth workers to give them the confidence and the tools to run schemes for young people addressing racism, identity and community cohesion. They will in turn train other workers and in the long term contribute to sustainable changes in attitudes.

Unlike many projects which get one-off money and then give up when the money runs out, this is an investment in people which should pay dividends year after year.

Rewind, who will do the training, is a highly respected organisation which helps people to get beyond simply knowing about other cultures, challenges the myths and stereotypes by demonstrating the origins of racism and then deconstructs them using factual examples like DNA evidence from the human genome programme. Many of us unconsciously believe these myths without realising it."