Someone quoted to me how many Muslims they are in prison now and how many Muslims they
were in prison 10 years ago and it's increased by I think 200% or something because the small
Muslims in this country and they're not getting this help because of language barriers and
education so they'll end up, you know, this is young people I'm talking about and it's
very scary.
We've seen a lot of personality changes, some students come as every young man and
they actually then we just ask them to help us out and give them some importance or something
and they kind of break those moulds and break that defence system.
If you interviewed me four years ago you would see me as a really bad Muslim student.
I never knew anything about science and I'm taking GCSE, I never knew anything about my
own religion which I'm at the moment taking as a course in Islamic studies and I'm also
taking English so to have an examiner, a specialist, a teacher who's an examiner and
its teacher is just, I mean, I couldn't ask for anything more, I'm blessed.
I love here, don't get me wrong, I love it here but for me to be in a multicultural school
is also a good thing because I have different people in same year as me that inspire me
and that is really good and they make me feel better and they make me want to be a better
to me if you know what I mean so that inspires me to just keep going and aim high because
the bomb is just too crowded.
It's all a package, it's not just education, it's like a community field.
We do this day on the 2nd of April where we had X Factor quiz for them, buzzer than poems.
It's not about giving them faith or anything, it's just about feeling you're actually the
main actor here, you're not a second actor, you're not a supporting actor, you're the
main actor, it's your show, people sitting around you are just like you and you feel
as important.
Some of the kids actually believe it or not they have issues, it's just about giving
them self confidence in what they are, it's not about telling them you're different, it's
about telling them no you can join these people, be like them, it's okay to have your religion
but don't shy away, just join in, keep your religion but go in, join in the society, learn
about careers, do something good to the society.
To see the same students that we work with, six years down the line, going to university
it's really rewarding because we all live in the same area, it happens all the time.
My brother came out of A's and B's and he learnt so much from teachers that I've just
learnt from as well, so whenever I go home I say, my teacher told me that you've learnt
this from last year so you actually need more details and he actually goes from details
to details to this entire year.
I think in a couple of years we'll have to get our project funded by the mainstream schools
directly because all these eight years we've been doing it for free really and the students
come from their schools and get the support, go back and they pass their GCSEs for that
school.
