On Thursday 16 April, the Good Faith Partnership delivered a “Social Cohesion Lab”, hosted by the Aston Mansfield Centre in Newham, London (above) and generously funded by the Muslim World League. The event brought together more than 35 representatives from the worlds of faith, civil society, and charity in a “social hackathon” format, whereby participants discuss local issues and generate practical and actionable projects to address the issues.

The session opened with a presentation by British Future’s Jake Puddle, presenting the findings and recommendations of their Independent Commission on Inclusion and Belonging in Multi-Ethnic Newham. From there, the participants formed project teams to select a challenge issue they wanted to address and begin building an actionable project that addresses it and promotes social cohesion.

Then on Tuesday 21 April, the Good Faith Partnership ran a “Community Cohesion Hackathon” at Easton Community Centre in Bristol, also generously funded by the Muslim World League. The event brought together more than 35 people from the worlds of faith, civil society, and charity in another “social hackathon” format, whereby participants discuss local issues and generate practical projects to address the issues.

The Bristol session opened with a presentation by Ruth Pitter and Kamaljit Poonia, presenting the findings and recommendations of Bristol City Council’s Reflections on Community Cohesion report. From there, the participants worked in teams to tackle the following challenge: design a new pilot initiative or project that you think would make the biggest positive difference to community cohesion in your local neighbourhood or across Bristol this summer. Teams were encouraged to build actionable, innovative, impactful and scalable solutions to community cohesion.

Participants at the Newham, London event voted on an idea to take forward, selecting ‘Come Dine with Me’ in local schools as a social cohesion pilot project. With the generosity of the Muslim World League, a tender will be issued for £10,000 to local organisations to help action this project.

Participants at the Bristol event voted on the idea to take forward, selecting local storytelling workshops as the community cohesion pilot project. With the generosity of the Muslim World League, a tender will be issued for £10,000 to local organisations to help action this project.

They were both days defined by hope, opportunity, and collaboration, reflecting the strengths of diversity in Newham and Bristol and people’s dedication to fostering better connections among individuals and across the communities that call those places home.

Social cohesion work with the Muslim World League

Neighbourhood Health and the opportunity for collaboration with faith groups