Press Release - 26 September 2005

"Workplace key to race relations", says Charity chief

Britain's workplaces hold the key to race relations, the Labour Party conference fringe was told on Monday.

'The economies of most successful multiracial, multicultural societies are such that everyone - regardless of ethnicity - is able to secure jobs in line with his or her skills and aspirations,' said QED-UK chief executive Dr Mohammed Ali OBE.

'This acts as a channel for communication so that people from all backgrounds come to appreciate that we have more in common with each other than we have differences. Job-focused strategies are the key to genuine community integration in the UK.'

The head of the award-winning Bradford-based economic development agency, which focuses on improving the circumstances of the UK's two million people of South Asian origin, majority of them of Muslim religion, emphasised the importance of raising awareness of the huge diversity between and within ethnic minority groups.

While recognising that a wide range of factors including poverty, poor housing and health and racial and religious discrimination play an important part in segregation, QED-UK has taken a lead in developing employment-based strategies for promoting community cohesion.

These include initiatives aimed at encouraging young Asians to consider a wider range of career options instead of following traditional professions and a new arrivals integration programme to help recent immigrants to find fulfilling work that makes use of their qualifications and experience.

QED-UK has also formed the Policy Makers' Network, which encourages men and women to contribute to public life by taking up places on decision-making bodies, and has set up a new project aimed at reducing the 30 per cent gap in employment rates between people from Pakistani and Bangladeshi backgrounds and the general population. It also works with public and private sector businesses to remove the obstacles facing ethnic minority communities in the workplace.

'We are campaigning to remove the barriers that leave so many people stranded above the high-water mark of public life,' said Dr Ali. 'Solutions to these problems must be diverse and able to tackle both supply and demand sides of the labour market.'

Other speakers at the fringe conference included Margaret Hodge MP, minister for Employment and Welfare Reform, and Trevor Phillips, chair of the Commission for Racial Equality.

For further information, please contact Dr Mohammed Ali OBE on (01274) 483267 or (07812) 010918