The Swadhinata Trust

Shadinata Trust, 131 Commercial Street, London, E1 6BJ, England

The Shadinata Trust promotes Bengali history and culture to ensure its representation as an essential part of the history of Britain and by extension, our contemporary world. The Shadinata Trust has been operating for a number of years, offering seminars, workshops, exhibitions and educational literature to young Bengali people in schools, colleges, youth clubs and community centres in London.

The need for such a Trust has arisen from a sense that, an absence of documentation and social data representing Bengalis' heritage, historical presence and achievements internationally, can contribute towards a sense of marginalisation, low self-esteem and alienation of young people in particular, as part of a minority ethnic community within wider society. This in turn, can limit their participation and contributions to mainstream culture.

As part of its goal to promote Bengali culture for a wider international audience, the Shadinata Trust now seeks to establish a centre whose main activity will be in the field of culture, research and education. Shadinata also proposes to develop a series of projects which will enable it to generate income through which to further support its activities. It aims to operate as a community and 'not-for-profit' business, selling educational material, teaching and consultancy services to statutory, voluntary and community sector agencies initially in Tower Hamlets and ultimately, nationwide. The establishment of an archival facility with a focus on the history of Bengalis in Britain is also envisaged as a complement to its educational activities. Within a wider definition of educational activities, the Trust also proposed to explore its potential to develop facilities such as study tours to Bangladesh, exchange programmes abroad and local history tours exploring the presence of Bengalis in Tower Hamlets.