Westminster Briefing all day Conference entitled “Equality Conference 2008 – Achieving a Fairer and More Equal Society for All” will be hosted by The House Magazine on Tuesday, 25th November 2008 to be held in Westminster. The newly launched Framework for a Fairer Future – The Equality Bill sets a new direction in achieving a fairer and more equal society for all. It aims to strengthen equality protection, advance diversity amongst all sections of society and ensure more harmonised and effective equality legislation. This Westminster Briefing Conference will provide delegates with an opportunity to consider the Bill and examine its implications with key stakeholders, and discuss the way ahead to ensure that a fairer and more equal society is achieved. For more information visit http://www.westminster-briefing.co.uk/equality08.html

Leeds Connecting Communities is holding a BME networking event-for more information see attached flyer.

Alice Tligui Training Extending Cultural Awareness What is cultural awareness and how do we acquire it? This one day course: · Helps participants to appreciate the process of cultural identification · Demonstrates how to read and understand cultural rules · Explores different cultural rules about such topics as food, marriage, hospitality….. · Looks at the phenomena of culture shock and how this affects behaviour For further information and booking forms please email Val Kay Course Co-ordinator: val_virgo1@yahoo.co.uk or go to website: www.alicetliguitraining.co.uk

Series of three seminars on understanding the skills and knowledge of people working with refugee and asylum seeker families. The Children’s Workforce Development Council (CWDC), working with Northumbria University’s Disaster and Development Centre (DDC) and National Foundation for Education Research (NFER) has set up a series of three seminars which aim to understand the skills and knowledge of people working with refugee and asylum seeker families. The long term aim of this project is to provide training for individuals or groups to fill skill or knowledge gaps in relation to their work in this area. Who’s Invited Individuals working with refugee and asylum seeking children including local authority staff and those from voluntary and community organisations, charities, social enterprise and cooperatives. Places will be allocated on a first come first served basis. There will be a limited number of places for individuals from the same organisation. Discussions will be documented and a report capturing the three events will be produced detailing lessons to inform the practice of others working in this area.

Alice Tligui Training Workshop – Gender, Violence and Honour - NEW This workshop is a follow-up to the Women from Abroad course. The workshop will explore different cultural gender experiences and perspectives on violence i.e. Gender and Persecution, Gender and Sex/Marriage and Gender and Violence and how participants can adapt their professional practice to better respond to these phenomena. N.B. This workshop is ONLY open to participants who have attended the Women from Abroad and Domestic Violence course. For further information and booking forms please email Val Kay Course Co-ordinator: val_virgo1@yahoo.co.uk or go to website: www.alicetliguitraining.co.uk

LAUNCH OF NIACE CAMPAIGN A right to a voice: Survival English for Asylum Seekers Wednesday 10 December 2008, London, 9.45am – 3.15pm Attendance is free Substantial research evidence shows that language is the key to social integration for newcomers to Britain and also leads to employment giving newcomers an opportunity to contribute to the economy. NIACE calls on a wide range of organisations and individuals to support asylum seekers in the first six months in the UK and offer them ‘survival English’ within a ‘Welcome to Britain’ programme of support. This will include getting to know your local area, accessing essential local services and some basic first aid English. Volunteers from community groups, faith groups and the wider community are asked to join us in this challenging initiative to raise awareness of the needs of asylum seekers and to put right a social injustice. Background On 10th December 1948, in the wake of the Second World War, the government signed the Universal Declaration of Human Rights which recognised education as a universal right of men and women, whatever their nationality, race or circumstances.

About the workshops: The aim of the workshops is to equip voluntary and community sector organisations with the skills to negotiate effectively with public bodies on issues such as funding cuts, policy change consultation and local authority decisions concerning the provision of services. The workshops are open to all voluntary & community organisations who are funded by, or seeking funding from, public bodies. The focus of the workshop is on the delegates experiences in dealing with public bodies and how to resolve disputes to the advantage of the voluntary and community sector. We are sorry, but we are unable to accept bookings from public bodies. The workshop includes sessions on: What is public law and what are public bodies What happens when things go wrong What you can do when faced with these problems. For more detail see http://www.navca.org.uk/services/learningopps/evs/evstraining.htm

Calling all third sector Development Workers based within a support agency Do you work for a support agency or infrastructure organisation in the voluntary and community sector? Does your job involve giving hands-on support to frontline groups and organisations? How do you know you are doing your job well? We are developing a new set of national occupational standards[1] for development workers who support voluntary and community groups and organisations. The SKiLD learning project at NAVCA has already done lots of work on the key elements of development work. They’ve developed a competency framework where you can assess your skills and find out about relevant resources. Have a go at www.skild.org.uk. We need your help! We want to make these national occupational standards as relevant and useful as we can. We want to check that both the content and the way that we actually produce the standards will work for you. If you're a development worker who supports voluntary and community groups and organisations, it's easy to get involved, you can give your feedback during the three month consultation phase taking place from December 2008 – the end of February 2009 by:

About the workshops: The aim of the workshops is to equip voluntary and community sector organisations with the skills to negotiate effectively with public bodies on issues such as funding cuts, policy change consultation and local authority decisions concerning the provision of services. The workshops are open to all voluntary & community organisations who are funded by, or seeking funding from, public bodies. The focus of the workshop is on the delegates experiences in dealing with public bodies and how to resolve disputes to the advantage of the voluntary and community sector. We are sorry, but we are unable to accept bookings from public bodies. The workshop includes sessions on: What is public law and what are public bodies What happens when things go wrong What you can do when faced with these problems. For more detail see http://www.navca.org.uk/services/learningopps/evs/evstraining.htm