Race on the Agenda has carried out research, in partnership with the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC), to look at the human rights and equality dimensions of the Grenfell fire tragedy in June 2017. The purpose of the research has been to determine if the State is fulfilling its duties under human rights and equality law.

The research was conducted by Poornima Karunacadacharan and Ayah Omar from ROTA, with assistance from Preeti Kathrecha and Marion Sander at the EHRC and Andy Gregg, Eleanor Stokes and Kimberly McIntosh at ROTA. Thanks are due to the ROTA volunteers who transcribed the interviews: Amana Qureshi, Tahira Bakhtiari, Nausheen Khan and Parana Rajesh. Stuart Hodkinson and Sue Lukes advised ROTA on ethical issues and survey design and Sue Lukes assisted with editing.

You are invited to attend an event 13th March to hear the results of this research and the conclusions and recommendations which the Commission has submitted to the official inquiry.

Event details:

13 March 2019, 12pm - 2pm

Al Manaar, Muslim Cultural Heritage Centre

244 Acklam Road, London W10 57G

2 DAY BID WRITING BOOTCAMP

Join us on Friday 8th and Saturday 9th March for an intensive and hands-on bid writing bootcamp.  This cource is not to be missed!

This course is designed by experts for you to win at putting strong bids together and to receive grants from Funders.

You will be taken through the whole life cycle of the Bid Writing process including:

- Fundraising from Trusts and Foundations

- Project Design

- Prospect Research

- Bid Writing

- Impact Measurement

You will also get the opportunity to work on your own bid and gain insignt into putting different types of applications together.

Guest Blog by David Hencke

You may well have missed it under the Brexit deluge but Theresa May announced a major reform of the Mental Health Act this month – the first for 30 years.

She had commissioned Sir Simon Wessely, Regius Professor of Psychiatry at King’s College London and president of the Royal Society of Medicine to examine the legal state of Britain’s mental health system.

His report came out earlier this month. Frankly it is full of warm words but proposes scant action and dumps the problem of better treatment for mental health patients on the NHS.

The good part of his report is that it does give better rights for patients held under community treatment orders. and some useful changes when mental patients die in police custody including restoring non means tested legal aid to challenge the authorities.

The bad part of his report is that it fails to offer a solution to what is one of the most glaring problems in the mental health service – the vast number of Afro-Caribbeans who are sectioned compared to the majority white population.

It acknowledges it exists and in his introduction Sir Simon Wessely quotes the view of one ethnic minority person who told him “for a black person, a psychiatric hospital is seen as the place where they drug you up, and at worst even kill you”.

Following our Annual General 2017/18 on 22nd November, ROTA held a special conference on "Brexit for BAME Britain?"  The event saw the launch of our research briefing on the potential impacts of Brexit on Black and Minority Ethnic (BAME) communities.  The event was streamed live on twitter and our youtube channel.

The conference was chaired by Debbie Weekes-Bernard, Deputy Mayor for Social Integration, Social Mobility, Community Engagement, at Greater London Authority (GLA).

You can watch the conference again in full and download the briefing "Brexit for BAME Britain - Investigating the impact" on our website.