Where:Amity Community Centre, 1 Clarks Road, Redbridge, IG1 1UF
Date: 30th November 2013
Time: 16:00

Abstract

November 2013 saw a series of community outreach events organised by East London Community Connector Tamer Yigit around the tradition of the Noah’s Pudding. Noah’s Pudding, a dessert traditionally prepared by Anatolian Muslims around the Muslim festival of Ashura and shared with neighbours, has long been used by the Dialogue Society as a way of connecting neighbours and bringing together different communities and stakeholders through the simple pleasure of sharing food. As well as reminding those of the Abrahamic faiths of common ground by the reference to Prophet Noah, who features in each of those religious traditions, the pudding is a fitting symbol of a healthy multicultural society: the many different ingredients retain their own flavours and textures in the finished pudding and the combination tastes great, just as in a thriving diverse society different people retain different traditions and beliefs while being part of a harmonious whole.

Tamer Yigit assisted Amity Community Centre in organising an Ashura event at the centre with the attendance of the Mayor of Redbridge and other community groups. After the welcome speech and a presentation about Noah's Pudding by the community centre's manager, the Mayor delivered a speech on the subject of the importance of building community cohesion, mentioning the centre’s activities which bring people together from different backgrounds in the borough. She commented, "Noah's pudding is a way of bringing people together due to the ingredients as they come from the different fields with different tastes and gathered in a bowl, in a way it represents a city of diversity."