UNIVERSITY of Bolton Students' Union showed their commitment to tackling hate crime.

The students' union held a Hate Crime Awareness event, as part of a Greater Manchester initiative to stamp out such incidents building on the region's reputation for celebrating diversity.

The event is held annually and this year it focused on encouraging the reporting of incidents and highlighting that Bolton Students’ Union staff are on hand to provide free confidential advice to any student.

A variety of stalls were set up, including those from the Samaritans, Self Help, the Law Commission and the National Centre for Domestic Violence.

The Fire Service and the Greater Manchester Police were also at the event with many other organisations.

The Octagon provided a live poetry session, there was a talk on the difficulties experienced living as a transgender in today's society.

The event ended with the the students' union body releasing balloons that contained positive messages of support written by students and staff at the university

Mayor of Bolton Carole Swarbrick opened and closed the event.

She said: "Hate crime is a very serious social issue which has a significant impact on victims.

"Being you is not a crime, targeting you is."

The students' union said the event was "very popular with students as we have such a diverse student body".

President of the University of Bolton Students' Union Arthur Kaddu said: "Events like this are very important, the University and Bolton in general has a very diverse population, it is important that everybody feels safe in the environment they are in.

"We want all our students to feel that they are part of a community that accepts them for who they are."

Hate Crime Awareness Week takes place every year and the week of activities aims to raise awareness of hate crime, how it affects victims and how we can support people to report incidents.

Hate crime occurs against race, religion, transgender identity, sexuality, disability and alternative subcultures.