Lawrence Shenkin

The following article was written by Lawrence Shenkin, one of our Sixth Form students

Over the summer, I participated in the National Citizen Service. During the three weeks I participated, I met with new people of multiple faiths, including Islam, Hinduism and Buddhism. I also participated in work experience in the BBC and at Sajid Javid’s office, and on the final week, I helped to launch the charity Burst The Bubble UK. JLGB invited me to a Jewish community celebration event at the Roundhouse in Camden to talk about my experiences in front of an audience of 1200, which included high profile guests such as the Chief Rabbi and The Lord Levy. The charity I helped to set up, Burst The Bubble UK is ongoing and we release bi-weekly podcasts on Spotify, Youtube, SoundCloud, Itunes and Apple Music. Burst The Bubble is a youth organisation that runs events in mosques to destroy the misconceptions Muslims may have about the Jewish community, and events in shuls to destroy misconceptions about the Islamic community and try and promote conversation between all faiths. We have primarily been able to do this through our podcast, which has been fairly successful so far. In the podcast, we get high profile members of the Jewish and Islamic communities to converse and discuss their ideologies. My role in the charity is as the Project Coordinator, Secretary and I’ve hosted a couple of episodes on the podcast.