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mojatu.com | Nottingham connected The Community Partnership Forum Bringing community organisations together - By Paul Grant On Tuesday 23rd October the Community Partnership Forum (CPF) held its first open community meeting at the Marcus Garvey Centre on Lenton Boulevard. There was an excellent attendance with standing room only as the founding members of the CPF outlined their hopes and aspirations for the future. The CPF is a group born out of the initiative of the Sheriff of Nottingham, Cllr Merlita Bryan, who was in attendance at the meeting. The aim of the group is to be a credible voice to articulate the needs of the Black community (African/African-Caribbean/ Dual Heritage) in relation to community planning, service delivery by mainstream institutions and to work for the equitable allocation of resources, particularly in relation to education, employment and economic development. There were presentations outlining the current economic situation in Nottingham and which highlighted that Nottingham has the highest level of BME unemployment of any city in England and Wales. It was noted that the Office of National Statistics (ONS) reports that. The Black Minority Ethnic (BME) unemployment rate in Nottingham at 9.4% in 2012 (nationally - 6.0%), the highest in the country. The data also shows the largest variations of unemployment in the Black or Black British group at 16.0% (nationally - 9.7%) and in the Mixed Ethnic group at 12.9% (nationally - 6.0%). This is in contrast, the unemployment rates for the Asian or Asian British and Chinese or Other Ethnic groups are 4.1% and 4.6% respectively. Those in attendance were brought up to speed regarding the Nottingham Growth Strategy which aims to stimulate economic growth and development across the city; and the Nottingham City Deal, a £60M initiative, financed by central and local government, aiming to create several thousand jobs in creative industries in Nottingham. From a broader perspective there was a general consensus that there was a need to: • Build bridges between the African and African- Caribbean communities. • Improve partnership working between organisations in the voluntary and community sector • Create structures that enable engagement and participation of the community in issues that affect it and produces accountable leadership • Hold public bodies accountable for the services they deliver (or fail to deliver) to our communities • Promote entrepreneurship and business development in the African and African-Caribbean communities • Engage with young people so that their voices can be heard A second open meeting will be held on 27 th of November starting from 6pm to 8pm. This will help start to create a structure within the CPF which allows for maximum community participation and to identify some priorities for immediate action. If you would like to get involved in the Community Partnership Forum, please contact Paul Grant at [email protected] or 0770 3004813. He stole much more than limelight from Obama! Little school boy upstages Obama`s presidential campaign photoshot by stealing a kiss from classmate 4 twitter.com/ barackobama