Stoke-on-Trent City Council event highlights “Harms of Hate”

The ‘harms of hate’ event, which was organised by Stoke-on-Trent City Council, took place at the YMCA, Hanley, saw just under 200 people from all backgrounds, faiths and communities attend.

The aim of the event was to signpost services that are available in Stoke-on-Trent for victims of hate and to help build a community ethos and resilience around any forms of hate in the city.

It featured survivors of hate recounting their personal stories and lived experiences of coming through hate, extremism and terror. 

National speakers at the event included:

• Mindu Hornick - Ms Hornick is the last remaining Holocaust survivor in the West Midlands. She talked about her life's journey from Slovakia to her home city of Birmingham with the dramatic survival of the biggest extermination camp in Poland - Auschwitz-Birkenau.

• Ahmad Nawaz - Mr Nawaz spoke about his survival at the hands of the Taliban at the attack on the APS School in Peshawar in Dec 2014.

• Suzanne Richards - Ms Richards talked about the 2015 Tunisian terror attack.

Local and midlands contributions came from Challenge North Staffs, a hate crime reporting charity, Frontline Dance who performed a piece on disability hate and exclusion and Abdullah Rehman from TellMama, an anti-Muslim hate group which supports victims of anti-Muslim hate.  Jason Smith performed a spoken word poem while Cheryl Gerrard talked about Lidice Lives and its legacy in Stoke-on-Trent.  

Community groups in attendance also had the opportunity to find out more about Building a Stronger Britain Together* funding grants and the support available from Stoke-on-Trent City Council to progress applications for projects in Stoke-on-Trent.