Upcoming Events Multicultural Tagore-Burns Celebration 2024

Aberdeen Multicultural Centre

AMC is a user-led charitable organization committed to fostering positive transformations in the lives of the diverse communities within Aberdeen. AMC actively promotes collaboration and integration among various community groups, endeavouring to cultivate harmony and facilitate the exchange of cultural and linguistic diversity. The organization's dynamic objectives extend to providing comprehensive support to communities and society, addressing aspects ranging from social and economic spheres to welfare and environmental considerations. AMC aspires to achieve enhanced social integration, the eradication of social isolation, and the facilitation of diverse cultural activities. Additionally, AMC is dedicated to augmenting economic well-being through the implementation of community development projects. By championing these multifaceted initiatives, AMC aims to contribute significantly to the social fabric, fostering a more cohesive and interconnected community that thrives across social, economic, and cultural dimensions.

“Promoting Equalities in Culture & Language Practices” is AMC’s main motto.

Our Projects

CCF Afro-Asian Community Energy Challenge Project

The Afro-Asian Community Energy Challenge project funded by Government’s Climate Challenge Fund (CCF) is currently underway in Aberdeen through the Aberdeen Multicultural Centre. The aim of the project lies in reducing carbon emission through raising awareness and changing behaviour on energy efficiency measures within Afro-Asian communities. The project has so far shown to be very successful among participating communities in Aberdeen. 

 

The main factor behind the success of this project lies in the strong link and trust among these communities with Aberdeen Multicultural Centre and the professional technical support from Home Energy Scotland (HES). Partnership with HES has given us the expertise to build our reputation and inspire trust among hard to reach communities, providing technical support and delivering effective and efficient demonstration on energy saving measures along with providing web portal referral systems. Concurrently, we have managed to address and involve hard to reach communities who have never participated before this joint partnership programme.


International Mother Language Day

The International Mother Language Day proclaimed by the General Conference of UNESCO in November 1999, has been observed yearly since February 2000 to promote linguistic and cultural diversity and multilingualism. The date represents the day in 1952 when students demonstrating for recognition of their mother tongue, Bengali, as one of the two national languages of then Pakistan, were shot and killed by police in Dhaka, which is presently the capital of Bangladesh.

To encourage the linguistic and cultural traditions of the multicultural community of Aberdeen, there will be different community groups and charities will take part in this event and different linguistics will be performed on their mother tongue. 

 

Aberdeen Multicultural Centre celebrate International Mother Language Day each year in the month of February to promote the importance of mother language with different culture, colour, race and linguistic together to perform folk dance, instrumental music and many more traditional activities to show respect to their mother tongue.

 

International Mother Language Day celebration on 21st February 2016 was one of the most successful event. There were performers from 25 different linguistic background, more than 100 participants and around 500 audiences enjoyed the day.


Aberdeen Mela - One World Day

Aberdeen Mela is a vibrant cultural festival which helps bringing together of all diverse communities of Aberdeen in a common space to share each other’s living styles, cultural diversity and ethnicity. The Aberdeen Mela – a multicultural festival aims to provide an enjoyable time for the people of Aberdeen and Aberdeenshire through celebrating the richness of the culture of the many different groups living in the area. In Aberdeen there is no such type of regular event where people can participate and enjoy their cultural festivity as in other parts of Scottish city such as Edinburgh and Glasgow. This would be a very potential platform for all the diverse communities to engage in such event where they can show and present their skills into a wider population and make social integration easy. Although Aberdeen city has a diverse community but still majority of ethnic people are not exposed with the current environment. Aberdeen Mela event will help make bridge on hard to reach communities, better social integration and bring them out of isolation to build up a better harmony on the diverse communities. Such event will provide an opportunity to bring all the charitable organisation and commercial business together in a common platform to celebrate the diversity and multiculturalism of Aberdeen. This will also provide an opportunity for children to enjoy the day and be part of community. Last Aberdeen Mela was held on 17 September 2016 at Union Terrace Gardens Aberdeen. This was one of the most successful multicultural event in the history of Aberdeen. There were more than 4000 participants enjoyed the event with different cultural shows, ethnic clothing, multicultural foods, children fun fair and information stalls from different public and charitable organisations.


Community Engagement Programme

 

The AMC organise monthly community engagement programme which provides information and advice to the communities on services, support, activities, cultural events etc, and how to access those services available locally. Going a step further, the centre adapts a holistic approach by working closely with the wide range of partners from the public and third sector organisations such as Aberdeen Council of Voluntary Organizations (ACVO), Grampian Regional Equality Council (GREC), Aberdeen City Council (ACC), Langstane Housing Association, SCARF, Home Energy Scotland, Keep Scotland Beautiful, Rape And Abuse Scotland, Council of Ethnic Minority Voluntary Sector Organisations Scotland (CEMVO), Ethnic Minorities Law centre (EMLC), BEMIS, NHS Grampian, Ethnic Minority

Forum and Multicultural Health Forum, to acquire and access useful information for the diverse communities in Aberdeen. Furthermore, having a community development oriented partners such as SHMU radio, Art Centre and Aberdeen Football Club Community Trust ensures even wider spectrum of engagement opportunities on offer.


Robert Burn Night Celebration

The annual celebratory tribute to the life works and spirit of the great Scottish poet, Robert Burns (1759-1796). We will organise a poetry citation programme with a major theme of Robert Burns Birthday Celebration where community members from diverse communities will participate and learn about the Robert Burns. The event has to witness the act of addressing Haggis in Scott language with the ancient tradition of Scottish style and with procession of Scottish pipers, Different musical performances and Nepalese dance followed by Robert Burns Poetry recitation by various poets from different cultural backgrounds. Novel Loiret Rabindranath Tagore’s Bengali songs were performed by different performers. Rabindranath Tagore’s songs were influenced by Robert Burns, it was singing on Bengali and English version together. The crucial part of the event was an amalgamation of various cultures and traditions within a single rendezvous. It was a holistic opportunity to know people from diverse backgrounds. This sort of gathering will enable all diverse community members to learn about the culture of Scottish celebration and networking among different cultural background people together and enjoy the evening.


Multicultural Bike Rally

Aberdeen Multicultural Centre organise Multicultural Bike Rally annually in order to promote active travel campaign and reduce carbon emissions in Aberdeen. Participants from diverse community and professional from different cycling clubs, such as Aberdeen Cycle Forum, Becycle Aberdeen, Deeside Thistle Club, Aberdeen Wheeler, Grampian Tigers have taken part. There different cycling promotional Activities includes Bike Repairs, Puncture Repair, Bike Health Check, Bike Safety Tips, Local rout planning and led rides etc will also take part to make the day attractive and successful.


Energy Awareness Workshop

As we all are aware that changes in the climate can have devastating consequences, and we are already seeing the effects of climate change in some parts of the world (droughts, flooding, earthquakes, etc). There is good scientific evidence to suggest that the climate is changing because of greenhouse gas emissions caused by human activity. Hence there is an urgent need for the human population to reduce its fuel consumption. At the same time, the number of people living in fuel poverty is increasing. This is especially pronounced among ethnic minorities, where many are living in homes with insufficient heating systems, draught proofing and/or insulation. Often there is also a low level of awareness about energy saving measures and of how human behaviour contributes to climate change. Changing energy behaviour will therefore not only help to tackle climate change; it will also drive down fuel costs and lift people out of fuel poverty. AMC is currently engaged in a Climate Challenge Fund Project to address issues in reducing carbon emission and fuel poverty in the local area of Aberdeen city through disseminating scientific knowledge and by supporting practices of eco-carbon systems as advised by the Climate Challenge Funding Team particularly to the Afro-Asian community of Aberdeen. AMC successfully completed eight energy awareness workshops on raising awareness on climate change and energy efficiency measures. In each workshop we had more than 30 participants who were actively involved in our project. These workshops were facilitated by the expert advisors from Home Energy Scotland, Energy Saving Trust Scotland and Grampian Eco Hub. 


Testimonials

Today's Aberdeen Mela - One World Day drew a massive crowd to Union Terrace Gardens and was a huge success. Well done to Aberdeen Multicultural Centre and all the Partner organisations and individuals who helped make it happen.


George Adam
Former Councillor & Lord Provost
I would like to pay my gratitude to those who organised the events in International Mother Language day. It was really excellent gathering of multi ethnic community and a great opportunity to learn and exposed to other cultural diversity. Moreover, it was a chance to show our respect to martyr, who sacrificed their live to restore our mother tongues. Many thanks to AMC
Dr Ferdous Wahid

Get Direction


Contact Us