News

ROTA PRESS RELEASE: FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
14 February 2012

The Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) has awarded a grant to Race on the Agenda (ROTA), in partnership with the Tamil Community Centre (Hounslow), to carry out an innovative one-year oral history project with the Tamil community in London.  The project, called ‘Through the generations: untold stories of Tamil migration’, will give different generations of Sri Lankan Tamils in London the opportunity to contribute to the first ever oral history of its kind.

ROTA's submission to the Office of the Children’s Commissioner: Inquiry into Child Sexual Exploitation in gangs and groups (CSEGG). Read the submission here.

Race on the Agenda hereby gives notice to its members that our Annual General Meeting (AGM) for the financial year 2010/11 is scheduled to take place on 28 February 2012, 5pm at The Tomlinson Centre Queensbridge Road, London E8 3ND.

Book your place to attend the AGM here.
 

Inclusive Schools - Free Schools Monitoring Project

ROTA is carrying out a project that aims to help ensure that children and young people from marginalised Black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) communities benefit from the services provided by free schools. Part of this involves research to determine: the level of involvement of BAME communities in free schools as proposers, governors, staff and pupils; the support needs of BAME communities seeking to set up free schools; and the support needs of free schools in developing inclusive services.

Have reforms exacerbated existing tensions in the lead up to the largest civil disturbance in decades? Will public sector change fill disadvantaged pockets? Will BAME communities see change without real investment?

Experts and practitioners from the voluntary and community sector set out to answer these questions and chart the way forward in our latest edition of Agenda, 'Change for the Better? Government reforms and BAME communities.'

The Equality Act 2010 (Specific Duties) Regulations 2011 came into force on Saturday 10 September, after debates in the House of Commons on 11 July and the House of Lords on 6 September.

It is the aim of the specific duties to promote better performance of the Equality Duty by requiring public bodies to publish (1) equality objectives, at least every four years (by April 2012) and; (2) information to demonstrate their compliance with the Equality Duty, at least annually (by 31 January 2012 and April 2012 for schools).

There has been a lot of heat and very little light so far in terms of what needs to be done to stop the riots happening again. While it's the Government's and the police's job to restore law and order, it's our job in families and communities to restore hope and a sense that there is a future for young people that is worth living and working for.

The free schools agenda is coming at a high price to many communities that already face educational disadvantage, says Race on the Agenda (ROTA). There are a number of worrying cases where local communities are losing out. However, due to the limited amount of information available from the Department for Education and many of the free schools themselves, we have been unable to conclude whether these early signs are an indication of more systemic and widespread issues of inequality.

Over 80 delegates from across the mental health sector and criminal justice system descended on Coin Street Community Centre on 21 July to contribute to a discussion on Exploring the fault line - issues at the intersection of criminal justice and mental health.

The event, joint-hosted by ROTA and Action for Advocacy, brought together experts, including policymakers, practitioners, academics, BAME voluntary sector representatives and professionals, to share thoughtful ideas on key concerns, gaps in service delivery and potential areas of opportunity.