A GROUP of young Asian men living in Worcester say they feel they are not being listened to by agencies set up to represent them.

The men, who live in the Arboretum, Worcester, say they were turned away from last week's annual meeting of the Worcestershire Racial Equality Council (WREC) because the chairman, Malik Fayaz, "didn't want kids" there.

Mohammad Shiraz, said: "We were told it was a public meeting, but we were turned away by the chairman who said he didn't want any kids.

"We're in our 20s so we were very disappointed.

"We've been down to the WREC quite a few times, but we think they've never done anything for young people in this community. It seems they didn't want any critcism, but we weren't there to cause trouble, we just wanted to have our say."

The meeting was told that the organisation had spent the year trying to steady the ship after what Mr Fayaz called "one of the most damaging periods in the WREC's history".

Mr Shiraz said he felt the WREC did nothing to represent the views of young Muslims and said there was too much politics that never left the mosque.

He said: "It's a very big problem. The elders don't care about anything else and nobody listens to us."

At the meeting, the keynote speaker Waqar Azmi, who is now chief diversity adviser at the Cabinet office, said more members of the ethnic minority groups had to volunteer in the general community.

He said: "It's good to see that people are asking questions. I get worried when people stay quiet.

"People should be asking questions when they have concerns, he added."

WREC chairman Peter Oteng said in his report: "We haven't been sitting on our backs for 12 months doing nothing.

"There is still work to be done. For example, there's a Kurdish group in Evesham whose voice is not being heard. I want to know what they think."

He added: "WREC needs to challenge any negative stereotyping of any community or religious groups... The coming youth integration project and the Inter-Faith Forum are crucial components of WREC's response to this challenge."

Despite numerous attempts by the Worcester News, Mr Fayaz and Mr Oteng were unavailable for comment on the criticism, but told the meeting that the WREC were committed to reaching out into the community and a new decentralised structure would help them do this.