RACIAL equality and discrimination came to the fore on Wednesday (March 24) when Bury hosted a special event.

The day, entitled "Young and Equal", was organised specifically to allow youngsters in the borough to have a direct input into a proposed Bury Council racial equality action plan.

It is designed to combat racial discrimination, particularly among the young. In fact, Bury has become one of the first authorities to adopt the Commission for Racial Equality's "Young and Equal" standard and is now well placed to respond to the many findings from the recent Stephen Lawrence enquiry.

Local authority education and community services committee chairman, Councillor Andrea Hughes, said pupils from 12 Bury high schools took part in the event at the Met Theatre in Bury.

They represented all the borough's different heritage groups.

She added: "The Stephen Lawrence enquiry has shown without doubt that tackling racism is an issue for everyone."

Currently, just under 10 per cent of young people at Bury schools come from an ethnic minority group.

During the day, the young people attending had an opportunity to set the agenda for Bury. They were asked what they thought was important and how the local authority should develop in the future to ensure that the needs of all young people, of whatever ethnic group, are met.

The event, which included workshops together with activities including African drumming, Indian dancing and henna hand painting, was organised by Bury Council's education service together with the sports development unit and Bury Racial Equality Council (BREC).

Head of Bury Council's English language teaching service, Pinaki Ghoshal, said: "Racial discrimination is an issue for all of us; individuals are harmed and society as a whole is harmed.

"It is particularly important that we make sure that our young people in Bury understand this and do everything they can to ensure that in the 21st century we look back at the 20th century as a time in which racism was tackled in Britain."

Adding his support to the initiative, the director of BREC, Nasrullah Khan, said: "The Commission for Racial Equality is concerned about institutional racism. Events like this will go a long way to tackling this in Bury."

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