AN online conference is being held to discuss the issues affecting the BAME community in north east Essex.

Charity Community360 is hosting the event via video conferencing programme Zoom on Thursday.

Speakers and residents will have a chance to debate issues affecting minorities in the area and the attendance list includes leaders from the North East Essex Clinical Commissioning Group, Colchester Council and Essex Police.

There will be a question and answer session and the next steps to support the BAME community will be discussed.

Speakers include Annie Feltham, chair of the Community360 trustees, Jemal Allabayeva, of Dream the Change, Umesh Pun, of the Nepalese Elders community, and Maria Wilby of Colchester Refugee Action.

Tracy Rudling, CEO of Community360 said: “The aim of holding this conference is that we above all listen and gain a much-needed insight into what our BAME communities and friends are experiencing.

"We can then identify the key challenges from this knowledge, but also the opportunities.

"From this as a cohesive North East Essex Alliance we will formalise a series of recommendations from which we can develop partnership working and agree any actions that look to address the identified outcomes from the conference.”

“This could take the form of establishing subgroups, joint agency project development, access to resources within communities or implementing direct actions working with citizens and partners."

The conference takes place on Thursday between 4pm and 5.30pm.

Visit https://bit.ly/3goa4hA to join.