Women and business star are honoured

11:07am Tuesday 24th April 2007

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A BUSINESSMAN and a group of women who joined forces to tackle youth crime triumphed at a ceremony honouring community cohesion.

Hundreds of people gathered at the Reebok Stadium to celebrate the achievements of the area's diverse communities in the Fusion 07 awards.

Businessman Imran Hakim won the Entrepreneur Award while the Crompton Women's Forum shared the honours in the Community group of the year category.

The evening, organised by the Asian Image newspaper, included fashion shows, singing, dancing and a three course meal.

Part of the proceeds will go to the Fusion '07 official charity - Global Assist which is helping to build a school in the earthquake-hit area of Kashmir.

The Crompton Women's Forum slashed crime in their Bolton neighbourhood after assaults, robberies and drug and alcohol abuse became major problems for the community.

Police appealed to local people for help in dealing with the problem and those involved realised a crucial section of the community - Swith a huge influence on local youngsters - were mothers.

Mrs Yasmin Ali and Rukaia Jamader helped set up a meeting, which more than 300 local women attended. Crime rates were slashed almost overnight.

Entrepreneur award winner Mr Hakim runs a chain of opticians and has also appeared on TV programme The Dragons' Den in which he won funding to develop his I-Teddy product - a bear with an implanted TV screen He said: "This award is thanks to the hard work and efforts of the whole team."

Other winners in the awards included two men who successfully battled for a multi-faith centre in the Ribble Valley.

They were police inspector Andy Pratt of Lancashire Police, who in 1996 was responsible for setting up the first police community cohesion team in the county, and teenage snooker ace Kamran Ashraf.

Kamran, from Nelson reached the final of the England Under 16s snooker championships.