News

Having suffered the heartbreak of losing a loved one and endured the pain over the years, the last thing you want is to discover that the body you buried more than a decade ago was not of the one you lost.

It seems unthinkable and absurd but that is the case for Janet Alder, who thought she had buried her brother Christopher, who died in police custody, choking to death while handcuffed and lying on the floor of a police station in Hull in April 1998.

Interns from OBV recently visited the Occupy London protest at St Paul's Cathedral, which began more than three weeks ago. They spoke to demonstrators to find out more about their reasons to protest and what they, along with thousands around the world, hope to achieve by staging protests in major cities around the world. Here, Ijeoma Mbubaegbu gives us her experience of the protest and those who were demonstrating. Photo journalist Ahmed Sule also visited the site to capture the atmosphere of the protest. His images are published in this article.

A new course which teaches about the art of storytelling is set to launch next week.

Beginning on Monday, November 14, Eli Anderson, a graduate of OBV’s Magistrate Shadowing Scheme in 2006, will begin leading storytelling course with the theme “Storytellers have the power to change lives.”

OBV intern Arita Pecaka had the opportunity to witness the goings-on at this week’s Prime Minister’s Questions session at the House of Commons and gives her observations.

English Defence League leader Stephen Lennon has received a suspended jail sentence for head butting a fellow member of the group.

Lennon, who pleaded not guilty, received a 12-week sentence suspended for a year at Preston Magistrate Court. He had assaulted his victim shortly after speaking at a rally in Blackburn in April.

How do you get people who have differences or problems with different communities to tackle their inhibitions and challenge their views of others in society? One way to do so is to throw them in a room together and see what happens.

Well, that is exactly what Channel 4 will be doing in their new programme which will test the boundaries of racial and cultural harmony to see what happens when you bring people who live segregated lives together for the first time.

This week is National Adoption Week run by the British Association for Adoption & Fostering (BAAF) and sponsored by 1E to highlight the need for more adoption and fostering placements throughout the UK.

The Asian News marked the 10th anniversary of the Oldham riots earlier this year with a series of insightful articles around the disturbances. Happening before 9/11, those disturbances were to transform the way Britain viewed its Muslim communities, and also the way many Muslims viewed themselves.

Last year summer I reluctantly attended a public meeting held in City Hall by Mayor of London Boris Johnson and his team. The meeting was meant (or so I was told) as an information/consultation meeting to gauge the Black community’s feelings towards the Mayor’s proposed mentoring program. The programs remit was clear; 1000 Black men to mentor 1000 Black boys. Seven London boroughs were chosen by virtue of their Black crime statistics.

UK race equality think tank The Runnymede Trust is currently in the midst of an innovative new project looking at how we can end racism in a generation.

Called Generation 3.0 the project partially focuses on young people three generations on from the post-war migration of the 1940s and 50s, as well as on creating spaces for older and younger people to come together to share their experiences and views on how to end racism.