Bangla Mirror Desk:
A heritage project, ‘ Celebrating Bengali Heritage in Luton’ was launched recently by the ‘Centre for Youth & Community Development (CYCD)’, a project of Bangladesh Youth League Luton.
The event was held in the CYCD hall room on 3 September at the CYCD. The event was conducted by Trustee Iraq Chowdhury and chaired by Tahir Khan, CYCD’s Director.
The entire event was coordinated by Sunil Kumar, Project Coordinator CYCD and a vote of thanks was given by Abdul Halim, Trustee at CYCD
The chief guest at the event was AFM Zahid Ul Islam, Minister (Political) from the Bangladesh High Commission in London, who stressed the importance of preserving history and heritage. Other speakers who spoke were MP Rachel Hopkin, Cllr Fatima Begum, Cllr Alia Khan, Cllr Summara Khurshid and former founding member of BYL, Ansar Ahmed Ullah.
A cultural function was led by Fazilat Khan – cultural arts coordinator.
The project will encompass a mural representing key aspects of Bengali heritage, a documentary containing oral history interviews of the older generation about their memories of immigrating to Luton, an exhibition of the heritage collection, a garden of reflection, refurbishing of the Shahid Minar and running of poetry, singing and dance workshops for children.
The project is funded by the National Lottery Heritage Fund and will be completed by June 2023