After moving to Liverpool from Yemen in 1995, Taher Qassim started to notice a change in one of his younger daughters.
Speaking to friends also of Yemeni descent living in the city, they picked up on how their children had started to raise issues around such things as their names and clothes. As the few pupils of Arab heritage in south Liverpool primary schools, Taher recalls, they found it difficult to display and celebrate a culture which stood out from the rest of the class.
Hearing this, the former public health official at Liverpool City Council joined with fellow parents and began going from one house to the other having meetings, discussing ways to establish a stronger connection with their country’s traditions. The importance of learning Arabic was underscored, and so it was decided who was going to do the teaching, how much it was going to cost, where it was going to be.
