By Helen Scott

For eight days, 24 participants aged 12/13 and young adult leaders from Leeds, Sheffield and Manchester came together in Leeds to discuss, plan and run activities based on cultural conflict in our local communities. This was GB’s first ever Mosaic programme. Everyone brought their own city’s perspective of cultural diversity, but also violence and conflict due to misunderstandings and intolerance between communities.

We explored asylum seeker and refugee issues with Together for Peace and City of Sanctuary.

Together for Peace brings members of different communities in Leeds together to develop a feeling of belonging, something we also aimed to achieve by hosting this national not-for-profit programme. As part of the programme we attended an Iftar meal, which marks the breaking of the fast during the Holy month of Ramadan. For most of us this was a totally new experience and our first real involvement in both an Islamic and community event. The atmosphere was fantastic, as was the food, and money was also being raised for Islamic Relief.

Everyone agreed that feeling part of such an event, being able to promote CISV’s values in a local context and challenging our preconceptions was the highlight of our week. The group came together better than we could have imagined. We ran an activity based on what we learned at the National Junior Branch Day on September 24th in Manchester.