Young People Leading Change
Our name, “Together As One,” embodies both our ethos and the mission of our charity. We believe in working together to prevent violence and to promote cohesion.
Our mission is to work with young people from all faiths, abilities, and backgrounds to make a positive difference in our community through training, youth work and creative projects.
Our Origins
Together As One was previously known as “Aik Saath.” The project was established in response to gang violence between young people from Asian backgrounds in Slough.
During the mid-1990s gang-violence took place between young people from the Hindu, Muslim and Sikh communities of Slough and Southall. At the height of the tensions there was rioting - shops were burned, vehicles were damaged and young people were seriously hurt.
The conflict received national media attention and on 30th March 1998, Channel 4 screened a documentary about the tensions entitled The Peacemaker. The producers of the programme asked an experienced conflict resolution expert, Dr Dudley Weeks, to mediate between the gangs. His efforts formed the focus of the documentary.
The mediation process successfully prevented the conflict from escalating. However, to build a lasting peace, Dr Weeks advocated the creation of a conflict resolution group that would be led by young people for young people. This resulted in the formation of Aik Saath (meaning ‘Together As One’ in Hindi, Punjabi and Urdu).
The first peer training team was established to challenge the prejudices that resulted in so much violence between Asian young people in Slough during the 1990s. However, the project quickly evolved to work with all young people, regardless of their faith or background.
Our Values
The founders of our organisation believed that young people needed to be at the forefront of efforts to resolve the tensions which characterised Slough in the late 1990s.
Ever since then, we have sought to put young people at the heart of our work, empowering them to take the lead on a diverse portfolio of projects, ranging from efforts to meet the needs of specific groups, such as young carers, to arts and heritage projects, designed to strengthen understanding between people in our communities.
The active participation of young people is key to our work and informs everything we do. Our name denotes another key value of our organisation – we believe in bringing people together to resolve tensions, to bring about change, to make our communities safer, more cohesive places.
