Our next big thing - Linking Communities
World Have Your Say are going on the road again, but this time not too far from home. We're taking a week to travel around the UK meeting immigrant communities and connecting them with their original country and other members of the diaspora around the world.
We're calling it "Linking Communities" and from Monday July 17 to Friday July 21 we'll be speaking to newly arrived Poles looking for work in London, to third generation Brits in Bradford whose roots are Pakistani, Chinese in Belfast, Arabs in Glasgow and Somalis in Cardiff.
As ever, we want you to set the agenda. Do you have a question for these communities? Do you belong to one of the communities we've chosen - perhaps in another country? Do you want to hear a discussion on culture, music, sport, politics? Is there something in the news that you want to hear from their perspective? Or perhaps you feel we should have chosen your community. Tell us why and we'll think about it for the future...
On Monday we'll be at the Carlisle Business Centre, in the heart of Manningham, a suburb of Bradford in the north of England that has a high concentration of Pakistanis. I was at the community centre on Sunday talking to a retired police officer about how World Have Your Say can take over the foyer for the broadcast. The centre is next to the Mosque and had lots of people milling around the area so hopefully we'll get a big audience.
An hour's flight the following day and by Tuesday morning we'll be in Belfast in Northern Ireland to talk to the Chinese community. We're setting up shop in a Chinese restaurant called Lee Gardens and we'll be hearing from Chinese both in China and with a bit of luck in Vancouver, where there is also a large Chinese population. And anywhere else Chinese people want to talk to us from.
Next on the agenda is Glasgow, Scotland and Arab communities. Richard has organised for us to broadcast from a café. He's being very secretive about it but it seems to be going well.
Today Priya is scaling Butetown, a small suburb of Cardiff in Wales, where a large Somali community is settled. She has gone to meet someone from the Somali Integration Society to find a location for our Thursday programme. However, she says she might have time to visit a photo exhibition of Somali elders in a local gallery so it's not all hard work for her today!
And finally to finish the week off we'll be heading back to London to speak to the Polish community. As well as a large settled community in England's capital, thousands of Poles have migrated here in recent months and years to find work. We'll be getting them together and some others in our office in Warsaw to talk.
If you want to be part of the programme, in person or on the phone, or if you have a question you want asked, fill in the form or send us an email to let us know.
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