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Bristol Somali Forum Meeting

BSF

Date: 06 November 2010

Time:11.00 am 1.00 pm

Venue:Barton Hill Settlement

Type of meeting: BSF monthly meeting Chaired by: Latif Ismail

Present : Bill Clark (ONS), Latif Ismail (Chair & Minutes), Richard Pearce (SomaliAdvice Project), Jayne Mills (BCC), Said Burale (Somali Forum), Ismail Omar (SomaliForum), Roger Allen (BCC), Valerie Russell Emmott (Business Link / Equalities SouthWest), Mahmoud Matan (Amana / UWE), Abdullahi Farah (Somali Resource Centre),Claire LittleJohn (Bristol Link), Mike Shepherd (Bristol Link), Ahmed Abdi (TowfiqMosque), Steve Vaughan (Police), Charlotte Pritchard (UWE), Omar Sabriye (SomaliResource Centre).

Apologies: Dheeho Yusuf and Abdi Mohamed (Somali Forum), Steve Wilms Hurst(Jubilee Trust), Cllr Sue ODonell

Actions

SomaliCommunityCalculator

Jayne MillsConsultation, Research and IntelligenceFrom BCC reported the following: SomaliCommunity Calculator

A wide range of estimates of the Somalipopulation in Bristol are regularly quoted,

with some estimates of up to 30,000Somalis living in Bristol. It is known thatthere has been a significant increase inthe number of Somalis in Bristol, however,it has been difficult to produce any reliableestimates.

Bristol City Council's consultation,research and intelligence team havedeveloped a methodology for estimatingthe size of the Somali community withinBristol called the Bristol Somali

Community Calculator. The estimates arebased upon number of variables includinginformation from the 2010 School Censusand ONS Birth Statistics, combined withinformation from a local surveyundertaken in 2007/8.

A large number of different scenarios wererun using the Bristol Somali CommunityCalculator and the results were that thereare an estimated 6,600 - 10,000 Somalisliving in Bristol. This is the first time Bristol

has had a reliable evidence basedestimate of the size of the Somalipopulation.

Jayne to send a briefsummary of theSomali Communitycalculator

Latif to circulate it tothe members and

partners

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Further information will be included in thenew version of BCC's "The Population ofBristol" document to be released later thisyear.

2011 Census Bill Clark from ONS told the forum the

following:

That Census is the biggest socialprogramme in the UK.

It is how central Governmentallocates funds to local authorities inthe region of 100 billion a year.

It is understood that the last censusunderestimated the population ofBristol by 10,000. Which is equivalentto a loss of half a million pounds forevery year over a 10 year period.

The information from the Census tellsus what kind of houses we need tobuild, the size of older population,family structures etc.

It can be filled on line, it can beposted, or collected.

The date that the Census will takeplace is 27th March 2011

ONS will be recruiting a lot of peoplein Bristol including area co-ordinators,and 200 collectors.

The message for the Somalicommunity is to write SOMALI on theforms.

All to encourage

people to fill in theirforms and take partin this importantsocial project

Bill Clark to attendForum meetingwhenever possible

Forum to remindthe community toengage with the

Census

Somali AdviceProject (SAP)

Richard Pearce the co-ordinator of theproject come to the Forum with tworequests:

SAP is only funded until March 2011 byBCC and currently facing financial issues.They need to approach other fundsincluding the National Lottery. Thesefunders would inevitably ask for evidence

of the need for the project.

Therefore Richard wishes to talk to mostSomali led organisations and members ofthe Community to assess whether in theirknowledge the project is still needed.

Secondly, Richard needs Somalimembers to join the project steering group

Anyone who canhelp SAP to contactthem directly

AOB Ahmed Abdi said the issue re theMosque in Barton Hill hasn't been sortedyet.

Matan told the Forum that the problemswith youth (Somali youth) still hasn't beenaddressed properly.

Roger & Abdullahi topresent jointly on thisissue at the next

Forum meeting inDecember

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Roger Allen & Abdullahi Farah Talkabout the level of welfare up take incertain parts of Bristol and different waysof accessing Council services.

Date for nextmeeting Date for next meeting will be2ndDecember 2010 at 11am at Barton HllSettlement