On the 26th August, The Federation of Patidar Associations held a Mehndi Creative Workshop run by Dhruti Dattani, Jyoti Bhanderi and Minal Parekh. The course content included the art mehndi, mehndi patterns, cone making, bridal mehndi and mehndi techniques. The workshop was a 1 day event and was attended by twenty young participants. The event was supported by Brent Council and The Federation of Patidar Associations.

Tanika Patel from FPA youth club: “this was my first ever mehndi workshop and enjoyed it thoroughly. The teachers were fantastic and taught me a range of skills which I know I can use again in the future.”

“Get creative” is aimed at young people within the area of Brent and surrounding areas. Currently there are four team leaders; Kripali Patel, Tanika Patel, Minal Parekh and Janaki Patel, project manager; Payal Patel . The team leaders have set up the following classes: Art Club - mehndi, textile painting, pot painting, Dance Club- Hip Hop dance, Bollywood, News Letter Writing club and Sports Activities. Get Creative has already attracted many young people to Patidar House where the events are taking place. Sessions run weekly until end of October 2008 at Patidar House, contact encee@patidars.org or call 0208 902 1974.

“Get Creative” started on 28/7/08 at Patidar House in Wembley. The project has been created and run by Payal Patel aged 22, from Wembley, and will benefit the local community by inspiring young people within the area to become young volunteers. The community project will run for a period of 4 months, and is to be funded through a vcashpoint grant from v, the youth volunteering charity in partnership with HSBC Bank, who are offering £1 million of grants over two years. vcashpoint only funds community projects that are designed and run by people across England who are aged 16 to 25, in recognition of the amazing ways in which this group can make a positive difference in their community.

Payal set up the voluntary project having identified a need for more social interaction across communities and felt that this was something young people from the area could help to change.

Inspiring Young talents - The visit, organised by ABi Associates in partnership with Federation of Patidar Associations Youth Club, enabled the young people to see the power of creativity and the positive impact it has on individuals and communities. Michael Ramdee, co-founder of Mahogany spoke about how the work they do acts as a catalyst for bringing together people from culturally diverse backgrounds.

Commenting on the success of this visit, Jyoti Bhanderi who runs the FPA Youth Club: “It was a fantastic opportunity for our young people to see how a creative company operatives, especially as many of them have ambitions in working for such a company one day. This visit gave them creative ideas, self belief and confidence.”

he Utsavam Festival held at the Horniman Museum Lewisham featured the best in Indian music, dance, food, crafts and more. The Horniman-s ground breaking Utsavam-Music from India exhibition featured National and International Asian artists. Over 5,000 people visited the wonderful event.

Encee Academy-s Bharatanatyam students were invited to perform on stage. Karishma Bajaria, Kripali Patel, Tanika Patel and Bhavisha Patel presented a beautiful Talana piece created by Ushaji Raghavan. Anjali Pathak performed a Bollywood item created by Binal Trivedi of Encee Academy.

Brent Youth Services invited Angeli Pathak, Ashini Patel, Reena Gudka, Pria Aurora and Devika Dixit to perform a Bollywood entre at their annual Phonenix Leadership awards at Wembley Stadium Conference Suite. The event was attended by MP Dawn Butler of Brent and MP Sarah Teather of Brent East. The evening was a great success highlighting Brent-s young achievers in the community. MP Dawn Butler commented: "I would love to join our Bollywood sessions at Encee Academy."

The Federation of Patidar Association (FPA) at London Road Wembley supported by Brent Youth Service ran a 4 day Workshop - Positive Activities For Young People (PAYP). 25 Young people from FPA youth club attended the workshop from 29th July until 1st August 2008 where they were involved in Yoga, Rangoli Art, Creative Poetry, South Asian Dance as well as Heathy Eating. FPA had a positive feedback from parents and youth. Ashini Patel a participant of the workshop stated "what a fun four days of activities, I have learnt so many skills over the week". PAYP is a project to allow the development of creative, educational, sport, dance, healthy activities in a safe environment. This successful event was aided by 10 volunteers and managed by Jyoti Bhanderi Project co-ordinator of FPA.

Harrow Masonic Centre hosted a summer charity fete - a fun day of dance, food and live entertainment. Encee Academy-s of Performing Arts Bollywood students performed a lively dance with an audience of over 1000 people, including the Mayor of Brent, Barnet and Harrow. Mr Vaghela the organiser of the event was delighted that the Encee Acadmey and FPA supported such a good cause.