From Catalyst to Community Builders: Southall Interfaith Exhibition

Nine Year 13 students at Featherstone High School, who originally took part in the Catalyst Programme in May 2023, applied for and successfully received a Near Neighbours grant to realise their social action project, formed as part of the course. On Thursday 22nd February, those eight Catalyst alumni students hosted Southall Interfaith Exhibition, an event that aimed to celebrate the rich diversity of cultures and faiths that have beautifully woven Southall's cultural tapestry.

The event was attended by around 100 people, made up of the school senior leadership team, local faith and community leaders and students from across the school. It was a joyous evening filled with music, bhangra dancing, Dhol drumming and cultural dress. It was a real celebration of all of the cultures that make up Southall.

Group photo of Catalyst Alumni

The school now plans to make it an annual event, which is testament to the legacy that these young people have created.

At the end of the event, we had an opportunity to catch up with Gurdit and Amrit to hear about their experience of the programme.

Gurdit

Being awarded the grant from Near Neighbours allowed us to apply the skills we learned as part of Catalsyt in a meaningful way. The event has created a platform and an opportunity for the school and young people to interact with older members of Southall’s community and promote unity and cohesion. We all had specific roles and I was voted as project lead. It was definitely challenging at times and a hard role to fulfil, but I feel like I’ve learned so much from it. I had to make sure that everyone had an equal say and that everyone’s ideas were heard. I learned that not only did we have to communicate, but that we had to have effective communication to make sure we created a collaborative, motivated team. Having such a strong support system from both Ms. Williams at school and mentoring from Lisa and Rabiyah at Near Neighbours, really helped us create such a successful event. Our regular meetings allowed us to ask any questions that we had, clear up any misconceptions and helped move things forward.

This has been such a rewarding opportunity. Having just finished the event a few minutes ago still feels surreal. It’s given me some really cool skills, like budget managing and project planning that I’ll be able to use in the future, and skills that are difficult to learn until you’re gaining hands-on, practical experience like listening and communication. But overall, one of the strongest things it’s given me, is an experience that will stay with me forever.

Amrit

I felt like I had a personal connection with Rabiyah from the start of the programme. She’s been a great mentor and that motivated me to want to continue. I come from a heavily female orientated family, and there are things that people in my family do that females in the Sikh Punjabi community don’t often do, like going to university,  dancing, playing drums, and so on. By exploring Gender equality as part of the Interfaith Exhibition, I was keen to address and challenge societal norms. I was the Deputy Project Lead who would pick up various tasks as needed to make sure the project progressed smoothly. Although today, I feel like everyone had an equal responsibility to make sure that everything went to plan. We all come from such different backgrounds, but we all connected over this one event, which was celebrating our own culture and faith.

I think the support we’ve received has been amazing. We’ve had support from every angle; family, school, Near Neighbours and each other. It really felt like everyone had each other's back. Even seeing friends quick to step in and help with selling tickets, has highlighted how something like this can gather momentum and how much people want to support you to make it a success.

I would recommend this to anyone. What started as just a simple idea has grown into this amazing event this evening. I feel like we’ve made an impact on the community by seeing religious leaders come, sit together and connect over one thing. It has highlighted how every faith and culture is beautiful in its own way.

Amrit on the right