A CONFERENCE featuring experts on race equality and community cohesion is taking place next week as part of a celebration event organised by regeneration group Community at Heart.

Community at Heart's race equality project has played an instrumental role in improving relations between different communities in the Bristol New Deal for Communities area covering Barton Hill, the Dings, and parts of Redfield and Lawrence Hill.

As the project reaches the end of its funding, staff are marking the occasion by holding a one-day conference on Monday. The keynote speaker will be Professor Ted Cantle, who originally coined the term "community cohesion" and is the executive chairman of the Institute of Community Cohesion.

Residents and agencies will be coming together to share their experiences of cohesion activities over the years as well as evaluating whether things have improved.

Although there is no longer specific funding set aside for cohesion work in the area, it is hoped that individuals and organisations will continue to adopt the lessons learned from the race equality project and promote better understanding between neighbours.

Andrew McLean, lead race equality officer for Community at Heart, said: "The conference will be a celebration of some of the fantastic work carried out by local people and agencies across the inner east of Bristol. It will also be an opportunity for areas such as Easton, Barton Hill and Lawrence Hill to acknowledge that racism still exists, and that we need to continue to tackle race hate crimes, racial discrimination and religious intolerance if we are ever to make the desired progress in community cohesion for local communities."

Mohammed Elsharif, a local resident who has played an important role in bringing people from different cultures together, said: "Being involved in the work of tackling racism in the area has been both stressful and rewarding.

"The joy of seeing lots of improvement in community relationship mixed with the feeling of disappointment about the need to do more or to stop backward steps.

"There is a clear need for a body such as the Race Equality Project to tackle racism to help people to be, feel, and act as equal partners in their community."

The Race Equality and Community Cohesion Conference is taking place on Monday, December 15 from 9.30am to 4pm at Barton Hill Settlement.