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Introduction
Geographically this site covers the Sunderland and Washington and is aimed at the Bangladeshi residents and organisations living or working within the area.

The Bangladeshi population in Sunderland consists of around 4000 people about 1% of Sunderland's total population. It is a very young population, more than 50% are aged between 16-30. The main community is in Hendon (1200) though there are also communities in Barnes, Pallion, Millfield and Thornhil.

2 local Mosques (Chester Road and Hendon) serve the religious needs of the local community. The Bangladeshi Centre on Tatham Street in Hendon is the main community meeting point; mosques are used only for religious purposes.

Almost all locals are speakers of the Syhleti dialect of Bengali (as most families came from the Bangladesh province of Syhlet) and most (around 70%) speak English, especially younger people. In fact 3 main languages are used by the Bangladeshi community - Bengali, English and Arabic (which is usually read rather than spoken as it is the language of the Koran).

Almost all households have one member of the family that speaks English. Family, religion and tradition dominate Bangladeshi life and culture. Community members revere religious, family and community elders - extended families live in close proximity. Islam dominates and informs the community's lives, culture and thinking.

Families tend to be strict with their children, the community has high moral values and tends to be hard working and self policing. There is a marked split between younger and older groups. Younger groups educated in the UK tend to be more ‘dual culture’ seeing themselves as ‘transitional’ revering their culture but enjoying interests outside of it like Western music and dress. Older groups tend more toward their traditional Bangladeshi culture, are less English speaking, more religious and dress traditionally.

Accessability
the text size of this site can be enlarged if needed. Click the link at the top of this page called "ENLARGE TEXT". To reset the text to standard size click the link "text to default size". The site can be read through speaking software systems such as Jaws and Wemedia.

A free to download talking programme is available from http://www.pixi.com/~reader1/index/html/_download.html.

Access Keys
These web pages comply with the UK Government accesskeys standard. The addition of access keys allows users with limited physical capabilities to navigate more easily. Listed below are the access keys used on this site.

PRESS KEYS LINK TO
[Alt] 1 Bangladeshi History
[Alt] 2 Home Page
[Alt] 3 Fighting Crime
[Alt] 4 What's On
[Alt] 5 Council Services
[Alt] 6 Muslim Organisations
[Alt] 7 Bangladeshi Life
[Alt] 9 Contacts