Hello Everyone, It’s the all-important Easter weekend for our Christian community in Newham, as they celebrate this special moment of faith and belief, marking the resurrection of Jesus on Easter Sunday. It will be a period of faithful reflection and celebration, just as it has been for several of our other religious communities in Newham! Vaisakhi is being celebrated by our Sikh community to mark the time in 1699 when the 10th Guru established the Khalsa order and Sikhism was born. I joined the congregation at the Ramgarhia Gurdwara on Neville Road last Sunday to observe this important moment with them – and it was inspiring. It was another moment to marvel at the glorious diversity of our borough. There’s also Passover - Pesach in Hebrew - being observed by our Jewish community, as they mark once again one of the longest religious observances in the world, a tradition that has been followed for nearly 3,000 years! We’ve also had the Eid al-Fitr celebrations marking the end of the Holy month of Ramadan last month, and this week, communities across our borough are celebrating a number of New Year’s as well. For instance, Pohela Boishakh was celebrated by our Bangladeshi community on Monday just gone, and our Sri Lankan community celebrated the Sinhalese New Year, known as Aluth Awurudda, on the same day. In addition, our Tamil community celebrated Puthandu, while our Nepalese community marked the Bisket Jatra. Finally, our Malayali community organised Vishu celebrations! It’s an amazing showcase of how wonderfully diverse we are! There are some 242 dialects and languages spoken across all our vibrant neighbourhoods, and our ethnically and religiously diverse community is something we should rightly be proud of as we celebrate our 60th year as an inclusive London borough in 2025. As we head into the Bank Holiday weekend, it’s a great moment to shine a light on some of the brilliant work taking place across Newham – work that often goes under the radar, but which is making a real difference in people’s lives. A few weeks ago, I had the great pleasure of opening Noele Gordon House, our new 75-unit supported living housing development for Newham residents over the age of 55 who want to downsize from their existing Council homes. Some of you may know that Noele Gordon was a famed British actor born in East Ham, who starred as the Crossroads matriarch, Meg Mortimer - one of the greatest soap stars of yesteryear. Everyone I spoke with when I went to visit Noele Gordon House was overjoyed at the facilities that allow for independent living in a caring community environment with beautiful design and features you’d expect in a lovely home. It’s also helping us to free up existing and much needed family-sized Council homes. To date we have been able to offer bigger sized family homes – that’s an extra 50 bedrooms – to those on our housing waiting list. As you may know Council homes with two, three or even four bedrooms are in extremely short supply – not just in Newham but across London. So by providing homes to down-size into is a win: win for everyone involved: the families needing homes with more bedrooms and our ageing residents who can move into well designed, energy efficient and genuinely affordable council homes in a supportive community setting. We know that there is a housing crisis, and we are determined to deal with it, in a humane and dignified way. Our schools are another great source of pride in Newham. All five of our grant maintained secondary schools have either a good or outstanding Ofsted rating; as do all but one of our 32 grant maintained primaries plus our two special-educational needs schools.
We don’t ordinarily hear about such great successes in our borough, and that’s why I’ll be showcasing more and more about all the brilliant things happening in our borough to be celebrated. Providing opportunities for our young people and ensuring Newham is fantastic borough to raise a family, is crucial to our Building a Fairer Newham missions. Our teachers and school staff work hard to ensure that their students get the most out of education. Our Year 6 pupils are 4th in England for reading, writing and maths!
But good teaching is only part of the solution, if our young people go to school hungry then the work of our educators is made so much harder. That’s why we need to recognise the excellent work of our We Are Food Secure programme for 11-19 year olds. By working with our young people, we are reducing food poverty in our borough.
Food insecurity is one of the primary contributors to poor health outcomes in young people and our goal is to ensure that we shift how food insecurity interventions are framed, designed and delivered for our young people. Good nutrition plays such a crucial role in our youngster’s health, and it’s vital that we support healthy eating for long-term health benefits.
This programme is one of a number that we’ve been delivering because we want our services to meet the needs of all our residents! In this instance, we’ve established a network of youth-friendly food havens which we’ve co-designed with them.
Just as we’re investing in the potential of our young people, we’re also committed to creating opportunities for adult learners to thrive. Our Newham Learning and Skills continues to deliver fantastic results, offering high-quality part-time education to residents aged 19 and over and all part of our life-long learning agenda. With courses ranging from ESOL and GCSEs to vocational training in areas like bookkeeping, data, computing and cake decorating, learners are gaining qualifications, building confidence – and opening doors to new career pathways.
You can find out more about all the courses on offer by visiting the website and I am really pleased that we have so many Newham residents signing up for learning. It’s a testament to the strength of our adult education offer here in Newham and the ambition we have for our residents as we encourage them to follow their aspirations.
I hope you’ve enjoyed reading about the progress happening across our borough, as here at the Council I’ll continue to support all efforts to build a fairer Newham in ways that strengthen and enable all residents across all our communities.
Wishing you and your loved ones a great bank-holiday weekend coming! Until next week take care.
Best wishes, Mayor Rokhsana Fiaz OBE Follow what I am up to via X/Twitter: @rokhsanafiaz | 
