This event looked at the August riots and their implications for race equality.

There has been much comment and some analysis of the August riots in England and whether or not inequality played a part. This conference provides an opportunity to hear from a range of voices and consider the implications for the future of race equality. Speakers will include children and young people, parents, community, faith and voluntary group representatives.

Photos from the conference

Headlines from the day include:

• A clear commitment that we need to avoid repetition of these events, but uncertainty of how to achieve this
• A sense of disengagement of children and young people, sometimes from families, sometimes from education, sometimes from the police, sometime from politicians
•  Parents wanting to support children and young people, but may also need support themselves in order to do this.  
• Low expectations of children and young people combined with limited ambitions and a lack of career opportunities.
• Labelling of children and young people persists.
• A group of young people together do not always equal a gang
• Education, schools, colleges need to have a wider role in promoting ambition and aspirations in young people.
• We need to remember that faith groups already provide a range of activities and support to young people.
• A variety of reasons why people got involved in the riots.  Some of this was about protest and disenchantment, but some there was also greed, stupidity and loss of morality.
• Overwhelming support for a public enquiry to help better understand the causes of the disturbances August 2011.
• The persistence race inequality appears to be one of the features of the riots.
• The persistence of inequality may have had a particular impact on African Caribbean communities.
• Who was providing leadership was a key question as was where the leaders of the future would come from.

The Foundation will be producing a more detailed summary as well as video of the event.  We will are discussing with our partners how issues raised on the day are addressed.

To find out more about our work in this area, please see our Communities Against Violence project pages.