“Multiculturalism presents many challenges” Discuss this viewpoint and include comments on the extent to which Batley has meet this ‘challenge
Batley has meet the various challenges with multiculturalism. However not all the challenges have been overcome. One of the main challenges presented was the various different religions present in the area. The Bradford area has a high population of caribbean, pakistan and indian migrants. To overcome the differences in religion and education every 1 in 3 schools in the district (Kirklees) are either a faith or multi-faith school. Also in 2014, a dedicated school for the muslim community The Al Hashim Academy’ was opened. This has both bad and good conditions. On the negative side, a muslim only school could possibly lead to a segregation community or even lead to racial discrimination.
However on the plus side, it does allow, the muslim community to freely educate their children in the way they wish to. Also, manyy religions have their own religious calendars. This initially caused friction between the employers and the local community. However after an extensive community led project, many employers overcame this challenge, as allowing and altering their business calendars to fit around their employers religious calendars. Also, some business have also overcome the religious barrier of traditional clothing, by allowing religious clothing to be part of the businesses uniform. To overcome thee cultural career of females being the primary carer of their family. Businesses have created part time jobs which are created to fit around their personal needs.
To overcome cultural segregation and to create a multicultural society Batley, has community action as a strong feature of the town. For example, the annual ‘Batley festival” celebrates the history of the place but also celebrates the multiculturalism of Batley itself. This festival also celebrates the blending of the different food and music cultures. As well, a great example of the community working together was the building of the Purwell Lane Mosque. The money needed to build the mosque was generated from the annual festival and in the local community. This is a good example of multiculturalism, as the community worked as a team, no matter, the age, race or religion.
Also, they have created a multi-faith football team to support interculturalism and the blending of cultures in their community. No matter how successful Batley has been at overcoming certain challenges connected with cultural diversity. There are still struggling with the language barrier. The local government and schools have been presented with the challenge of communication and sharing of information. The 3 main languages spoken in the area is Gujarati, Punjabi and Urdu. This is challenge as most of the migrants haven’t fully adopted our language and this has acted as a barrier to social integration, communication, information sharing and some issues with employment and educational opportunities. The only, way, so far they have improved this, is by employing interpreters and giving away free English lessons, to those in need.
