Our ambition for cohesion and integration in the years 2019 - 2024 is to lay the foundation ‘to make Barking and Dagenham a friendly and welcoming borough with strong community spirit’ – the vision set out in the Borough Manifesto for 2037. At the heart of this vision is the need to reinforce the links that keep and bring people together, across opinions and beliefs, culture, ethnicity, age, sexual orientation and gender, and to ensure that no one is left behind.

This strategy proposes five key priorities, with associated programmes and actions: 

1. Increase the opportunities for people from different background to meet and interact
2. Celebrate our culture, heritage and cultural diversity
3. Help all residents integrate in our community
4. Listen better
5. Create new and better jobs accessible to all and ensure a fair distribution of the benefits of regeneration across the borough 

Cohesion and integration, in Barking and Dagenham, does not mean everybody doing the same thing, thinking the same, dressing the same, eating the same. Nor does it only fall on one specific group of people. No matter what our background is, we all have a part to play to make Barking and Dagenham a friendly and inclusive borough.

This demands more listening from all of us. More shared experiences. More play. More laughter. To put a stop to loneliness. And hate. And indifference to one another. Because, regardless of our origins, ethnicity, religion or sexual orientation, we all came to belong, and we all aspire to lead happy and fulfilling lives for ourselves and our families.

See the full cohesion and integration strategy (PDF, 16MB)