YOUNG Bangladeshis are to make a film of the experiences of their community on Tyneside over the last 60 years.
The Newcastle Bangladesh Youth Organisation’s Our Roots project is to go ahead thanks to a £25,000 grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund. The 18-month project focuses on the settlement of the Bangladeshi community in Newcastle since the 1950s.
Eighteen young people from across Newcastle will work in partnership with Tyne and Wear Archives and Museums to record the experiences of older generations using film and video.
The short interviews will provide the building blocks for the creation of a documentary style-drama, which will also examine the gap between traditional Bangladeshi culture and an increasing Westernised younger generation.
Head of the Heritage Lottery Fund in the North East, Ivor Crowther, said: “This project demonstrates how important it is for people to gain a better understanding of their cultural heritage. It will allow current and future generations to learn about their own identities and compare them with others.”
The project will explore the difficulties families faced as new arrivals in the 1950s, living in a society that was very different from where they had lived before.
There will be initial screenings of the film at the Tyneside Cinema and the city’s Bangladesh Youth and Community Centre.
Sky channel 814, an international Bangladesh speaking channel, has agreed to screen the film in the UK and then across the world.
Alam Gir, chairman of the Bangladesh Youth Organisation said: “This is a fantastic project. We are all very excited and pleased to be able to take a deeper look into our histories and past lives.
“Compared to the 1950s, the lifestyle of today’s generation is totally different. In the 1950s people arrived by ship and many were uneducated. They worked in Tyneside’s industries and factories.
“Since then the aim has been to give younger people better education. They have become more westernised while older people have kept their old traditions.”
Bangladeshi film actor Mamunur Roshid has visited Newcastle to help in the project.
It will allow generations to learn about their own identities and compare them with others
