December 2015 | Issue 32
hs This mont
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YOUTH!
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Man
thrown off
coach for being Muslim
London’s Tallest Skyscraper! Whats in your water?!
#YouAintNoMuslimBruv Separating the Act from the Religion
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CON T EN T #YouAintNoMuslimBruv
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Caught In Your Tracks
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Uber Driver Disaster
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ISIS Sympathising Women Ch.4
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Muslim Women Switzerland
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100 million cups of tea
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Haringey Bus
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POSTER PAGE - Motivation
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Islamabad Book Shop
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Londons Tallest Skyscraper
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London’s Housing Crisis
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NO! to Holborn Station’s Policy
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Parking Enforcement Relaxed over Xmas
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What’s in Your Water!?
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Man thrown off Coach for being Muslim
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Build Muscle for better health
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Youth of the Month
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#YouAintNo
Separating the Act from the
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MuslimBruv Religion
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Christian Uber driver beaten and threatened by passenger ‘who thought he was Muslim’ An Uber driver from North Carolina has said that he was attacked by a passenger and threatened that he would be shot after the man said he believed he was a Muslim. Samson Woldemichael, who came to the US eight years ago from Ethiopia and who said he is Christian, said he picked up the passenger early on Sunday morning from a bar in Charlotte and was asked to drive to the man’s home, ten miles away. Mr Woldemichael told WBTV-TV that as he drove to the man’s house, the passenger become aggressive and hit him while he drove. When he arrived that the property, he threatened to shoot Mr Woldemichael in the face and strangle him. He also used antiMuslim slurs and profanity at the driver.
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“He asked me if I was a Muslim, and I said I was not a Muslim,” said Mr Woldemichael. “I was driving and he hit me while I was driving.” He added: “I told him in the first place I was not a Muslim, but it’s not right to generalize people and do that,” he said. The driver said he was afraid to park, so he drove around the block until the passenger struck him hard in the forehead, nearly knocking him out, and the man continued hitting him in the head.
Samson Woldemichael said he was punched and threatened YouTube “He was saying he would shoot me and he was acting like he’s hiding his hand in his back, so he was acting like he was armed,” said Mr Woldemichael, who drove away at that point and called the police. “There are people who are not originally from here but who are really Americans in their hearts,” he said. “They love the system. They love the country and they want to protect the system here.”
People who hire Uber drivers have to pay up front with their credit cards, and give their information. Mr Woldemichael is hoping police will be able to track the passenger. The incident comes amid a spate of attacks on Muslims and mosques. Campaigners say the terror attacks in Paris have left Muslims, and others, feeling more vulnerable.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/christian-uberdriver-beaten-and-threatened-by-passenger-who-thought-he-wasmuslim-a6738076.html
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ISIS sympathising women meeting in council-owned centre COUNCIL owned community centre being used by a group of ISIS sympathising women has stopped the group from meeting there after their shocking preaching was exposed. The Asian Centre in Orford Road has been used for a ladies group every Tuesday, but undercover filming shown on Channel 4 on Monday revealed the shocking preaching of those attending. In the documentary ‘ISIS: The British Women Supporters Unveiled’ a woman went undercover to meet with women supporting jihadists. After eight months of talking to them online she met with them and was allowed to attend an invitation-only meeting – which was held in Walthamstow. Nine women attended the meeting, with their teenage daughters and small children. A woman named Umm Saalihah, who says online Muslims should go to Syria, preached to the group. Speaking about the bombing campaigns in Syria, she said: “Not like the cowards throwing air strikes at the Khilafah (Islamic State) and killing innocent people. “They are cowards. They will never come down and put boots on the ground. Umm Saalihah also praises hate preacher Omar Bakri Mohammed, who has been banned from Britain and is now in jail in Lebanon, and speaks of her admiration for jihadi fighters saying ‘hasten his release’. At the next meeting in Lewisham, a woman named only as Umm L addresses over 20 women. She said: “The good days have already begun. Nobody thought it our lifetime we would see the establishment of the Khilafah (Islamic state).” The investigation was brought to a close a month before the terrorist attacks in Paris when one of the female ISIS supporters became suspicious of an undercover reporter.
“What can you do to a person who looks down the barrel of a gun and all he can see is paradise?”
http://www.guardian-series.co.uk/news/wfnews/14101740.Investigation_uncovers_ISIS_sympathising_women_meeting_in_council_owned_centre/
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Women in Switzerland who wear niqab in public can be fined up to £6,500! Tourists would not be exempt from the rules, but people arriving at airports and crossing the border into Ticino from Italy will be told about the penalty, according to Swiss news site The Local. It comes two years after voters in the Italian-speaking district opted to ban the full-body covering sometimes worn by Muslim women in public. Both the burka and the niqab, which has a gap for the eyes, will be illegal when the law is brought in – but masks and other face coverings worn by protesters would still be legal. MPs on Monday voted in favour of attaching a fine to the offence of wearing a burka or niqab in public. The penalty ranges from 100 Swiss francs to 10,000 Swiss francs. Security was ramped up outside the parliament building during the vote, The Local reported. The ban itself, which won over 65 per cent of voters during a 2013 referendum, was condemned at the time by Amnesty International as “a black day for human rights in Ticino”. Ticino has a population of 350,000, about two per cent of whom are Muslim.
Tory councillor who compared children in burkas to binbags expelled
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100 million cups of tea? Over the last decade we have successfully delivered environmental improvements across the Environment Agency which helped us to both reduce costs and negative environmental impacts. We’ve made some other significant reductions as well in both water and waste. Adding rain-water harvesting systems and other innovative water-saving technology to our offices has helped to cut our water use by more than a third (39%). This has saved 24,463m3 of water each year since 2006 – enough water to make 100 million cups of tea.
Since 2008, we have reduced the amount of office waste we produce by 50%, equivalent to 7,400 household wheelie bins (375 tonnes). In addition we have reduced the amount of waste reaching landfill (96% reduction over 8 years) annually to less than the weight of a bag of sugar (1kg) per full-time employee and all of our food waste is used to generate energy. By wasting less paper and encouraging more digital work, we have cut paper use by 115 tonnes – saving nearly 2,000 trees each year. Also in our construction activities we have diverted over 1 million tonnes of construction waste from landfill and ensured that all of the timber procured by us was legally and sustainably sourced.
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https://environmentagency.blog.gov.uk/2015/11/26/reducing-our-footprint/
Man jailed for hate crime on Haringey bus A man who used abusive anti-Muslim and racist language against an elderly victim on a Route 149 bus in Haringey on Thursday, 15 October has been sentenced to 16 weeks imprisonment for racially and religiously aggravated intentional harassment, contrary to the Crime and Disorder Act 1998. Kashif Samuels, 25 (15.03.90) of Duffield Drive, Tottenham had previously pleaded guilty on Wednesday, 21 October. Footage of the incident showed him subjecting the victim to a torrent of racist and islamophobic abuse. This ended with him grabbing the elderly victim’s zimmer frame and hurling it off the bus. He was sentenced at Highbury Magistrates’ Court on Thursday, 5 November. The Met is committed to tackling hate crime in all its forms, and has long since recognised the impact of hate crime on communities and the hidden nature of this crime, which remains largely under reported. We take positive action to investigate all hate crime allegations, support victims and their families and bring perpetrators to justice. We are always seeking ways to increase reporting and work with a number of third party reporting sites, so that victims who would otherwise feel unable to approach police direct can report crime to non-police organisations and individuals such as TellMAMA for Islamophobic incidents and the Community Security Trust [CST] for anti-Semitic hate crime. Victims of hate crime can also now report online via the MPS website.
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ISLAMABAD BOOK SHOP ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — After his father died, Ahmad Saeed took over the office on the ground floor of the family’s storied bookstore here, Saeed Book Bank. Then the elderly men started visiting, seeking to settle old debts. The man himself became an oracle to those looking for advice on books, taking time to establish a personal connection and to urge favorites on visitors. (That is another thing his son has inherited: He asked a visitor if he had read “Fallen Leaves,” the last book by the prolific American historian Will Durant, published in 2014, more than 30 years after his death.) Saeed Book Bank is an institution in Islamabad, displaying 200,000 titles, mostly in English, and stocking more than four million books in its five warehouses.
That approach helped Mr. Qureshi make an extraordinary future for Saeed Book Bank, particularly in an era when online sales have been driving independent bookstores out of business, and in a region where unfettered book piracy adds to retailers’ travails. With his passion for books, Mr. Qureshi built one of the biggest bookstores in the world — mostly selling books in English, in a country where that is a second language for most people. Saeed Book Bank has 42,000 square feet of usually busy floor space over three stories, displays 200,000 titles, and stocks more than four million books in its five warehouses — all, Ahmad Saeed said, “by the grace of the almighty.” (His visitor had not read “Fallen Leaves,” so Mr. Saeed sent one of his 92 employees to fetch a copy. “It is so good, you must read this book.” Another visitor to the office, an aged doctor named S.H. Naqvi, agreed, having himself read it at their insistence: “It will touch your heart,” he said.) Saeed Jan Qureshi came from a family that worked for a feudal landlord named Mir Banda Ali. His estates in southern Sindh Province were so vast that five railway stops reputedly lay within his property lines. His library was similarly scaled, and as a 9-year-old, Saeed was put to work dusting the shelves. One day Mr. Ali found him reading instead of working, and told the boy to get back to work immediately — but added that he could take a book home every night, so long as he returned it in mint condition. Saeed never got past high school but he was exceedingly well-read, and after school he found a job as a book
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salesman for a company that sent him to its Peshawar branch. Later, in the 1950s, he opened his own bookshop in Peshawar. During the Cold War years that followed, Pakistan was an outpost in the American rivalry with the Soviet Union, and Peshawar became an important military base, and later a vital C.I.A. base of operations, particularly during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. Say what you will about the spooks, they were readers, and Mr. Qureshi built his business around catering to their literary tastes. Later the rise of terrorism and fundamentalist Islam made Peshawar, capital of the wild frontier lands of Pakistan, a dangerous place for a bookseller — especially one who insisted on carrying magazines like Cosmopolitan and Heavy Metal, books by Karen Armstrong on Islam, and even the scientist Richard Dawkins’s atheist treatise, “The God Delusion.” (“You just wouldn’t believe how that sells,” Mr. Saeed said. “We buy a thousand copies from Random House every year, year after year.”) On the other hand, he said, another best-seller is “The Message of the Qur’an,” an English translation of the holy book by Muhammad Asad, a European Jewish scholar and diplomat who converted to Islam. Forced to close shop in Peshawar, Mr. Qureshi focused his efforts in Islamabad, the Pakistani capital, a place heavily insulated from the country’s more extremist elements. Hard times followed as even Islamabad became a “no families” posting for diplomats and aid workers, but by then the bookstore was so big that its sheer breadth kept it viable, as plenty of Pakistanis read books in English.
Plans For City’s Tallest Skyscraper Unveiled 1 Undershaft is the latest skyscraper being planned for London - and the public will be able to enjoy the view for free. If approved, 1 Undershaft will share the title of London’s tallest building Plans have been unveiled for a new skyscraper which could become the tallest building in London’s financial district. If approved, the 73-storey office block in the City would reach a height of 309.6 metres, equal to The Shard. It would include what developers claim would be the highest free public viewing gallery in London. The building, named 1 Undershaft, has been commissioned by Singapore-based developers Aroland Holdings.
The building plans include the highest free public viewing gallery
An elevated lobby will allow people to walk underneath the building
According to Eric Parry Architects, the tower would contain 90,000 square metres of internal office space, accommodate 10,000 workers, and include 1,500 bicycle parking spaces.
The building plans also include an education centre with two classrooms for school visits. A planning application is expected to be lodged with the City of London next year. If approved, the tower would join a raft of new skyscrapers in London, including The Scalpel on Lime Street, One Blackfriars and 100 Bishopsgate.
"It will be a building where the public are put first with a new public square at its base and the capital's tallest free public viewing gallery at its top," Eric Parry said. "Most skyscrapers are used Monday to Friday but 1 Undershaft will be used seven days a week, with the public able to enjoy the new public square, viewing platform and restaurant every day."
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Housing Crisis: 350,000 UK households unable to rent or buy without help by 2020 70,000 people a year to be priced out even if the Government meets its housebuilding targets Even if the Government builds 200,000 homes a year, inflated house prices mean 70,000 households would not be able to access the market unassisted every year Getty Images At least 70,000 new households will be unable to afford to rent or buy a home in the UK in the next five years even if the Government meets its target of building 200,000 new homes a year. Research by Savills, the estate agent, said this means a total of 350,000 households in England will not be able to afford to buy or rent houses at market rate by 2020. Even if the Government builds 200,000 homes a year, inflated house prices mean 70,000 households would not be able to access the market unassisted In London, some households with an income of £60,000 will be priced out of the housing market. Savills said that the national living wage, which rises to £9 per hour by 2020, will do little to help those households in London and the south where people earning far more than the minimum still cannot afford to rent or buy. Those families are reliant on a shrinking pools of benefits and tax credits. Efforts to increase affordable housing in London have only filled 36 per cent of the gap. In London, some households that earn £60,000 cannot afford to buy or rent
The range of incomes for households in need of sub-market housing NewGen 16
Changes to renting rules, replacing social housing with “affordable rents” that are 80 per cent of the market rate, will also impact housing availability. Savills said that in a typical London borough, market rent levels would need to be reduced by at least half to make them affordable to households excluded from the housing market. But local councils are struggling to subsidise rented housing without support from the Government. In lieu of this support, more councils are expected to sell land or lease it to homebuilders to pick up the slack. Despite Savill’s gloomy analysis, the UK’s second largest housebuilder Taylor Wimpey described the outlook for the UK housing market as “healthy”. It said that it had benefitted from local authorities looking to convert plots of land, with over 7,600 plots of land in their ‘landbank’ from a combination of land owners, local authorities and communities.
Londoners won’t put up with Holborn station’s new standing only escalator
policy It’s the morning rush hour at Holborn and the usual infernal flurry of bodies is moving purposefully at speed through the station. But today something is different. Staff with megaphones are standing at the top and bottom of the up escalator, asking commuters to stand on the right AND the left as they ascend; no walking is allowed. When reports of the change hit the internet, Twitter goes into meltdown, with the idea described as “madness!” and “unnatural”. The theory behind the Holborn trial, which will be in place for the three busy Christmas shopping weeks, is that it will be quicker for everyone to exit the station if the up escalators are used to their full capacity — with passengers standing two to a step. While walking upstairs is clearly quicker, not to mention better for your health, the fact is that most of us choose to stand during our ascent. According to a 2011 University of Greenwich study, only a quarter of escalator-users opted to walk upstairs, causing a backlog to build up at the bottom while people wait to stand on the right. So at Holborn all passengers will now have to endure the full oneminute-and-10-second ride up the 60 steps, the theory being that the queue of “standers” will be reduced. London is not alone in ripping up the commuter etiquette rule book. This summer both Hong Kong and Japan launched campaigns asking travellers not to walk on escalators but instead to stand still and hold on to handrails. There they are not so concerned with efficiency as with safety; both countries’ travel operators believe that restricting walking will dramatically reduce accidents and injuries.
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Parking charges and enforcement to be relaxed in December PARKING charges will be relaxed over the festive season in a bid to boost the borough’s small businesses. Waltham Forest Council has decided to “make life easier” for shoppers by giving the gift of two hours free parking at weekends throughout December. Anyone visiting the shops after 3pm during the week, will also stay for free. “We want to encourage as many residents as possible to do their Christmas shopping in local shops on the many excellent high streets we have all over the borough,” explained Councillor Clyde Loakes, deputy leader of the council. The ten car parks of Christmas will be Bedford Road, Brandon Road, High Street, Linford Road, Mission Grove in Walthamstow and Church Lane in Leytonstone. South Grove in Walthamstow will also be included, as well as Richmond Road and Hall Lane in Chingford and Stanley Road in Leyton. There will also be no parking enforcement carried out on 25, 27 and 28 December and 1 January. No vehicle removals will be carried out on Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve after 12.30pm. “Whether you walk, cycle, go by public transport or drive, the message is clear – get down to your local high street and spend your Christmas shopping money locally,” said Cllr Loakes. “Obviously the more environmentally friendly you can be the better, but we appreciate that you’re probably not going to strap a 20lb turkey or a six foot Christmas tree to your push bike, so take advantage of the free parking provision when you do need to use the car. “Giving away free parking is obviously not a decision we take lightly in these cash-strapped times, so please use our generosity to help support local businesses and give them the vital trade that Christmas brings.”
http://www.guardian-series.co.uk/news/wfnews/14105788.Parking_charges_and_enforcement_to_be_relaxed_in_December/
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What’s in your water?! Fluoride is a toxic drug linked with an array of potentially serious health problems. Most recently, research linking fluoridated water consumption to thyroid dysfunction received attention in both British and American media. Evidence also suggests it may contribute to or exacerbate behavioural problems such as ADHD, by way of pineal gland calcification. Despite irrefutable evidence of harm, the United States still adds fluoride to municipal water supplies reaching nearly 211 million Americans. As of 2012, more than 67 percent of Americans receive fluoridated water. Of those, more than 11 million people receive fluoride at or above what has been deemed the “optimal” level, according to the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). In the UK, about 6 million Britons receive water with added fluoride. Meanwhile, a growing number of countries—including Germany, Sweden, Japan, the Netherlands, Finland, and Israel—have ceased this hazardous practice. Because of all of these effects, the researchers urge city councils to stop adding fluoride to their drinking water. According to lead author Stephen Peckham: “I think it is concerning for people living in those [high fluoride] areas. The difference between the West Midlands, which fluoridates, and Manchester, which doesn’t, was particularly striking. There were nearly double the number of [underactive thyroid] cases in the West Midlands. Underactive thyroid is a particularly nasty thing to have and it can lead to other long term health problems. I do think councils need to think again about putting fluoride in the water. There are far safer ways to improve dental health.”
http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2015/03/10/water-fluoridation-thyroid-dysfunction.aspx?x_cid=20151126_ tweet_water-fluoridation-thyroid-dysfunction_twitterdoc
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Muslim man ‘thrown off National Express coach after passengers complained they felt uncomfortable’
HANNAH AL-OTHMAN
A Muslim passenger was thrown off a London-bound National Express coach because other passengers said he made them feel uncomfortable, it has been claimed. The man was allegedly asked to disembark the coach after complaints from a female passenger last Thursday. National Express categorically denied the man was asked to leave because of his religion, saying he was escorted off the bus after a dispute arose over his luggage. But University of Bristol student Rebekah Makinde complained to the company on Twitter after witnessing what she believed to be the Islamophobic incident. Ms Makinde, 21, from London, told the Bristol Post: “As soon as he got on the coach, the women at the front were just silent and staring at him. They were making their feelings very obvious. “As soon as the man sat down, one of the women went to speak to the driver. Another member of staff then came on and asked the man to get off. “He didn’t protest or anything, he just got off. What disgusted me the most was that someone actually thanked the woman after he left.” She said she questioned the driver over the incident, and was told the man had been asked to leave because he would not put a printer he was carrying in the undercoach storage with the rest of the luggage. “It’s ridiculous,” she said. “Everyone had luggage with them on the coach, I had bags and my laptop on my seat next to me and nobody said anything about that. The coach wasn’t even that busy and there were plenty of free seats. “It was only when the woman raised her concerns about the man saying she felt uncomfortable that he was asked to leave. “I heard the entire exchange between the woman and the driver and I know luggage was not the reason he was asked to leave.” • More young Muslims are calling us about Islamophobia, warns helpline • Mother who branded pregnant woman ‘Isis b****’ in bus rant walks free • Father in Islamophobic bus rant: ‘I am disgusted with myself’ She added: “I understand that drivers want their passengers to feel comfortable. But not if it stems from someone’s unfounded and Islamophobic beliefs and at the expense of another paying passenger. I am truly appalled.” Nick McDonald, Bristol, who was travelling to a conference in London, also told the paper that he overheard the group of women saying the man looked ‘shifty’.
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Build Muscle for Better Health For a balanced fitness program, strength training is essential. It can slow the muscle loss that comes with age, build the strength of your muscles and connective tissues, increase bone density, cut your risk of injury, and help ease arthritis pain. “Strength training is very important, not just for your muscles but for your bones,” says certified fitness trainer Debbie Siebers. “It’s preventative for [bonethinning] osteoporosis and other problems.” Studies from the CDC have found that musclebuilding exercise can also improve balance, reduce the likelihood of falls, improve blood-sugar control, and improve sleep and mental health. And let us not forget the weight-loss benefits. Not only does it make you look trimmer and shapelier, but building muscle also helps you burn calories even after your workout is done. “Three to four hours after a strength-training workout, you’re still burning calories,” says Seibers, a creator of fitness videos including the “Slim in 6” series. Strength training is especially important for dieters. When you lose weight, up to a quarter of the loss may come from muscle, which can slow your metabolism. Strength training helps you rebuild any muscle you lost by dieting — or keep you from losing it in the first place.
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Youth
of the Month The names Jauhar‌. Jauhar Asharaf. I study at Sir George Monoux and currently doing IT. My hobbies are archery, football and art; I do both traditional and digital types of art, I have also picked up animation. In the future I am hoping that I get a career in IT. I have been developing my skills in IT to improve my ability to be able to IT related work, so far I have learnt how to code html, css and freebasic. I have created two websites, one for a business and one made as part of my college course. ACF is a place I can relax after I finish my college work; ACF has a variety of leisurely activities such as pool, table tennis, and PlayStation and air hockey. It allows young adults such as myself to enjoy and relax after a day of school work. The members of ACF are pleasant to their visitors and interact with one another. I really think it is a good idea to have a youth centre in an area like this as recent history within the area shows gang violence activity. I have joined the YLP course which educates Youngers about radicalisation and extremism.
Jauhar Asharaf
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The Active Change Foundation is dedicated in promoting integration within communities by providing the tools for change. The development of young people is achieved through promoting leadership, education and skills development. We work with the local community including young vulnerable people, in order to protect, educate, enrich and empower our communities in East London
453 Lea Bridge Road, Leyton, E10 7EA, (0208) 279 1258 Charity No: 1125 970