Community cohesion
Manchester is an inclusive and welcoming city that celebrates diversity and works hard to build cohesive, resilient communities.
The past 18 months has shown that we need to review our approach to community building. This is due to the challenges from the impact of Brexit, changing communities and neighbourhoods, the COVID-19 pandemic, protests and campaigns, the Manchester Arena Inquiry and our renewed programme of work on race equality.
We have set up a group to develop a Community Cohesion Strategy that builds on the Our Manchester Strategy. This will set out the key things to focus on. We will include people with expertise and experience in key areas to develop the strategy.
RADEQUAL campaign
The Community Safety Partnership supports RADEQUAL. This is Manchester's campaign to build community resilience against prejudice, hate and extremism by helping organisations to develop activities and programmes for communities.
In 2020 to 2021, 5 voluntary and community groups received funding to build resilience to prejudice, hate and extremism through online sessions, podcasts, art work and focus groups. The funding was also used to increase growth and awareness of the groups.
The RADEQUAL campaign and grant programme helped Manchester Youth Zone to deliver the Creative Change project with the MAD theatre company and Sociological. This built community resilience to hateful extremism.
The project was for young people age 13 to 19 and their families in wards of high deprivation, where young people are identified as being vulnerable to messages of hate.
45 young people from various youth groups designed and delivered engaging and interactive session plans for their peers that aimed to challenge the issues of prejudice, hate and extremism within their communities.
These sessions included discussions on local incidents and personal experiences. The young people created drama pieces, videos and interviews to myth-bust and promote critical thinking around hateful extremism.
The young people then co-ordinated an online event that brought communities from 4 wards together to showcase the session plans and activities delivered.
The last event was delivered to an online audience of 75 young people and their family members. This was an opportunity to let the community know how to report hate speech and terrorist content online.
These young people will act as role models and champions for RADEQUAL messages that tackle hateful extremism. This peer support is a powerful tool to keep the conversation going in an informal setting. This will be supported by partner organisations and in wider community settings.