A special Arabian breakfast over at Norayn Café, I headed off to St Matthews area to meet Hashim Duale MBE to learn about the issues currently affecting the Somali Community in Leicester.
Arriving at the Community Centre, Hashim steered me to a Somali ladies “Tea and chat” group where the ladies were busy tearing up old rags. I was waved over and before long was put to work plaiting the rags together into long ropes. These were then handed over to a lady who deftly wove the rag ropes into a thick mat.
The group gathers regularly to allow the ladies to discuss issues with each other problems within the community or personal issues. The craftwork – such as rug weaving helps them to come together. Judging by what I saw it also allows them to produce some good quality rugs.
Next was a meeting with the leaders of the Somali taxi drivers association. Suleiman spoke to me eloquently about the problems that taxi drivers face in Leicester, especially late at night. The vast majority of customers are polite and well-behaved, but a minority are not. This can involve not just aggravation and racial insults, but sometimes damage to vehicles. Suleiman had some suggestions as to how the situation can be improved. I’ll be taking his ideas up with our partners.
A quick stroll took me to Iskcon in Granby Street to meet with some of the volunteers there. There has been some issues, but it would seem that they have now been sorted out, so instead we talked about more general issues in the city centre – such as dangerous behaviour by e-bike riders, aggressive beggars and anti-social behaviour .
My next appointment was in Belgrave, but not for an hour or so, so I took the opportunity to pop into some of the shops to talk to staff about retail theft, assaults on staff and other issues affecting shop workers. There was a general feeling that crime in shops had risen over the recent weeks. The data bears this out, so we will have to see what can be done to tackle this increasingly prevalent problem.
And finally, I went on a patchwalk around the open spaces in the Belgrave area. Walking with a local PCSO, I concentrate on Cossington Park and the smaller park off Dorset Street. The former has few serious issues, but the latter is more problematic. A lack of footfall after dark, poor street lighting and a lack of CCTV all conspire to make this area attractive to those wanting to indulge in street drinking, drug taking or anti-social behaviour. We had a good look at the area and discussed some possible solutions. Some might be fairly easy to get into place, but others may involve more complex and expensive working with partners. We will see.
Being in Belgrave, I grabbed a quick samosa for a snack before heading off to Rushey Mead for a Navatri celebration organised superbly by Cllr Geeta Karavadra.
