TikTok sensation Joshie Man returns to Brum to celebrate one-year anniversary challenging hate

Birmingham: An autistic youngster who became a global online sensation after challenging Islamophobia returned to Birmingham this week to mark the first anniversary of his “Cake Not Hate” campaign.

Thirteen-year-old Joshua Harris, known as The Joshie-Man, rose to prominence after baking cakes with his father to show solidarity after a Peterborough mosque was attacked in October 2025.

In the 12 months since, he has been invited to visit and share his cakes at mosques all over the world, meeting communities, politicians and world leaders along the way.

Autistic teenager Joshua – who is non-speaking – and his father Dan Harris launched Cake Not Hate to combat Islamophobia, racism and prejudice across England but soon found themselves meeting supportive celebrities, politicians including Keir Starmer and Kemi Badenoch, and even the President of Türkiye (Turkey) Recep Tayyip Erdoğan; as the campaign took them across Europe, the Middle East and Asia.

“The Cake Not Hate campaign started accidentally a year ago,” Dan said.

“We went to our local mosque in Peterborough, where we’re from, which got attacked by a far-right person. We went just as a small sign of solidarity.

“My son Joshie is a great baker so we took some cakes and said ‘sorry these people don’t represent the great British public’, and then we started getting invited to go to lots of mosques all around the world, and other places of worship. But also, we’ve got the other side which is a very strong intimidation campaign to try and get us to stop coming.”

Hot on the heels of recent visits to Malaysia, Turkiye, France, Bosnia and Saudi Arabia; the neurodiversity advocates made a return visit to Birmingham during the half-term holiday, to mark the first anniversary of their bold inspiring initiative.

During their three-day visit to the West Midlands, Joshua and Dan met members of the Muslim community in several Birmingham mosques including a charity breakfast in Sparbrook (UKIM Sparkbrook Islamic Centre & Masjid) and a scouts group visit in Aston (Masjid Al Falaah). They also visited a youth club at a mosque (Masjid Al Farouq) in Walsall and joined Sunday Mass at a church in Small Heath (Holy Family Catholic Church).

Dan revealed Birmingham was one of Joshie’s favourite places in the UK to visit. “There’s no hospitality like Brummie hospitality,” he said.

Speaking at the Birmingham Jame Masjid in Aston, Dan said their mosque visits challenged the narrative that mosques might be “a place to be suspicious of or fearful of.”

“Joshie-Man really enjoys being in the mosque so he finds them a place of peace and tranquility, also he runs to the minbar as soon as he gets here and he enjoys going to pray as well; and we’ll be giving out some cake later.”

During their visit, fans and followers of social media star Joshie-Man took selfies with Joshua and livestreamed his special visit to the city.

The father and son team distributed free cakes at all of the places of worship they visited, before concluding their trip to Brum by giving away free ice-creams to local residents in Small Heath Park, where they also took part in a community litter pick with local clean-up project PureStreets.

The owner of Arabian Tailor in Henley Street, who kindly donated thobes to Joshua and his dad Dan during their first visit to the city, gifted them another pair on the last day of their latest tour of the city.

With 134,000 followers on Instagram, over 132,000 followers and 2.9 million

‘likes’ on TikTok, The Joshie Man is inspiring people all over the world to come together to stamp out hate.

“Other people could be and should be taking cake into places of worship, more interfaith dialogue. It shouldn’t need me and Joshie to be travelling around the country. Let’s be doing it all in our local community,” his dad Dan added.