While most of Southampton was cold and wet yesterday, Natraj Restaurant was full of warm well wishers and supporters for Pukaar's first open day. The aim of the open day was to invite the community into Pukaar to build stronger relationships within the community.

The multicultural music charity hosted the event which consisted of nearly twenty different organisations attending a small exhibition, presentation about Pukaar, and a lunchtime buffet. Representatives from Amnesty international, Southampton Institute, City Council and Solent Mind were amongst some of the important guests who tucked into the curry luncheon.

Paritosh Padhy, a volunteer musician and I.T administrator for Pukaar, gave a ten minute presentation on the charity, its role in the community and past events. This was followed by a question and answering session by Pukaar team members and one of the directors, Naomi Fraser who also organised the event. She said: 'We were delighted to see so many faces from organisations from around the city, and are excited to strengthen existing partnerships and build new ones, as community partnership is the essence of our work'.

Southampton MP, John Denham, also attended the event to show his support for the multicultural organisations. "In a city like Southampton, we need a whole web, a whole network of different initiatives, different organisations which are everyday, building new links and new contacts and forms of understanding. Pukaar should be a very important part of that network to work together, meet together, and above all, have fun together. So more strength to you, you've obviously achieved a lot in a short time."