Blackstock St in north London has been recognised as a street that represents the whole world.
Why do you think that is, how can a street represent the world?
Journalist Fiona Dunlop wrote recently, "In Blackstock Rd, you can travel and taste the world. From Africa to the Middle East and Asia, before finally landing in Europe. The choice is infinite, global and unpretentious."
Fiona describes a beautiful gold-domed Mosque at one end of the street which lies near the Arsenal football stadium bringing "armies of football fans" to the area in search of tasty food. Today there over 270 nationalities living in London (ask the children to guess the number before revealing) and over one third of the city were born in a different country. Fiona says this shows how the capital city embraces immigrants.
In the 1 km stretch of road, there is only one chain supermarket; the rest are all independent, family owned stores. Below is a picture of Hakim Amokrane who owns a halal, Algerian butcher and grocery shop with his two brothers.
Hakim says not all their customers are Muslim although the greeting, "Salaam Alaikum" is often heard; "We want to serve everybody. We feel part of the community. Here I found a culture that fulfilled me, a different way of life and language."
Across the street is an Ethiopian cafe and deli owned by Mohammed Aslam. Mohammed says, "When I opened, customers were mainly Caribbean and English, then came West Africans, Bangladeshis, Somalians and Algerians. Now we have Ethiopians, Colombians and quite a lot of English. We must never depend on just one community in business."
This photo shows Rose Axmu, who owns a Uyghur restaurant selling food from Central-Asian cultures such as hand-pulled flat noodles, meat samosas, dumplings, aubergine stew, pilaf rice, chilli chicken and spiced lamb kebabs (ask children which foods they recognise, can they describe the foods?). Rose says, "It's exhausting work to prepare all these dishes, but we like our customers who even come from far outside London."
Fiona describes a Chinese hardware shop, an Algerian cake shop, an Italian restaurant and a Turkish restaurant, where the owners says just 10% of the customers are Turkish; "the rest reflect this mixed neighbourhood."
Margaux Cras is French and owns a hairdressers. She says, "I came to London by chance 8 years ago, opened this salon and never looked back. London is a very open minded city but I love London and Blackstock Rd in particular. I feel at home in the mix, everyone is respectful of other communities. I feel safe."
Jojos Kitchen is an Ethiopian kitchen owned by Yohannes Asfha. Yohannes came to England as an asylum seeker in 2008 and then learned English. He worked in restaurants before opening his own on Blackstock Rd; "I chose this area for the diversity."
- what is diversity?
- what is an immigrant?
- There are 270 nationalities in London today, Fiona says this shoes how the city embraces Immigrants - what does she mean?
- How does a street like Blackstock Rd benefit from immigration?
- why do the Arsenal football fans come to Blackstock Rd for food? Why don't they go to English restaurants and eat English food? What does this show about Britain today?
- do we all benefit from immigration?
- Fiona describes Blackstock St as, "The choice is infinite, global and unpretentious." what does this mean?
- "We must never depend on just one community in business." What does Mohammed mean by this?
- Margaux says she came to London 8 years ago "by chance". How can someone come to a city "by chance"?
-"I feel at home in the mix, everyone is respectful of other communities. I feel safe." what does Margaux mean by this?
- Yohannes came to England as an asylum seeker in 2008; what is an asylum seeker?
- Why didn't Yohannes learn English before arriving in England?
- Is it easy to learn another language as an adult? Is it easy to open your own business? How would you describe Yohannes?
- "I chose this area for the diversity." why?
- What can we learn from Yohannes, Margaux, and all the business owners on Blackstock Rd?
- How would you respond if you heard someone say Yohannes and Margaux should not be here, and that they were taking jobs from English people?
- Why is this about No Outsiders?
- How is this story about the Equality Act?
- Which British Value is this assembly about?
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