[updated 12th April 2015]

The programme for this event may now be downloaded from the RememberOluwale website. Click here to access the details of the event.

Do you work with people in Leeds who are marginalised and excluded because of their homelessness, mental ill-health, destitution, alcohol problems? Or pushed aside because they are seeking asylum, been in prison, criminalised, or because they are people of colour? Or maybe you had these experinces yourself?

David Oluwale, found dead in the River Aire in 1969, endured all of these troubles for most of his twenty years in Leeds. Maybe you are campaigning, like the Remember Oluwale charity, to change Leeds into a city which includes everyone, whatever their position? If so, join us on 17th April on the 4th floor of the Rose Bowl at Leeds Beckett University (adjacent to the Civic Hall). Registration from 9am. Starts promptly at 9.30am.

A group of organisations are working together to create a Symposium with the aims of:

• raising the voices of those who are excluded
• improving existing partnerships and developing new ones
• forming the basis for unified campaigning against marginalisation and exclusion in the city of Leeds
• raising hope and promoting change
• improving research in these fields and developing effective policy and practice.

We are organising this gathering on ‘un-conferencing’ lines, using the World Cafe and Open Space formats. This allows extended discussion with no long speeches. There will be brief opening remarks at 9.30am from Cllr Keith Wakefield (Leader, Leeds City Council). The event is designed for maximum participation and discussion.

"Experts by experience" from St George's Crypt, Touchstone and the refugee/asylum sector will make short inputs throughout the day, explaining their situation and saying what changes they would like to see made. Sai Murray (Remember Oluwale Board member) will give a short talk about David's life and death in Leeds. Jane Daguerre, director of the West Yoirkshire Community Chaplaincy, will talk briefly on the problems people face when discharged from Armely jail, where David was locked up in 1953.

Pop-up arts (the poets Michelle Scally-Clarke, Rommi Smith, Ian Duhig, Seni Seniveratne, and the Royal Blood reggae duo) will punctuate the event. It will be fully facilitated by Mike Love from Together for Peace. Participants will be able to draw discussion groups together to debate any issue (related to the aims of the day) that concerns them.

Towards the end of the day, we will turn to the question of what actions should we be taking? Max Farrar (Remember Oluwale Secretary) will raise the question of whether Leeds needs an Action Group to campaign against exclusion and for changes in policy and practice in the city across all the "Oluwale issues". Others will be invited to put their own proposals for action. Mike Love will draw us together to make agreed plans. The day will conclude (at 16.45) with Royal Blood singing songs from their latest CD.

Thanks to generous support from the Centre for Applied Social Research at Leeds Beckett Uni (LBU), this event is free. Nurture at St George's Crypt will supply free sandwiches at lunch time (1300). Or you can bring your own refreshments. Or buy them at the excellent cafe on the ground floor of LBU's Rose Bowl. Please note: we cannot supply tea or coffee. That's available at the ground floor cafeteria. There are vending machines, or you can bring your own drinks.

There is a Wikispace set up to discuss issues in advance of the Symposium here. Please contribute if you'd like to. The RememberOluwale website is here

The event is now fully booked, but we expect some to have to withdraw, so a waiiting list is forming. Please contact Max Farrar maximfarrar@gmail.com if you want to join the waiting list.

Planning group partners are: Remember Oluwale (DOMA), Centre for Applied Social Research at LBU, St George’s Crypt, Touchstone, LASSN, and Together for Peace.