Refugee festival will be city's 'most diverse yet'

Bradford has been a 'city of sanctuary' since 2010

A festival which celebrates Bradford's migrant and refugee communities will be "the most diverse so far" when it returns in the autumn, organisers have said.

Tickets for the Intercultured Festival, which takes place from 21 October until 2 November, have now gone on sale. The programme includes films, poetry, food and music.

The 2024 edition of the festival will be the fourth since it was founded by Mussarat Rahman.

She said the event aimed to "unite" people in light of Bradford's status as a City of Sanctuary, which it has held since 2010.

Mussarat Rahman founded the festival to support refugee and migrant communities

Ms Rahman said: “We provide a creative space for the crossing over between communities and smaller ones which did not feel represented previously.

“This year’s programme is our most diverse yet, with events spanning Pahari poetry, a Sudanese cooking class and a drumming circle.

“We couldn’t be more excited to celebrate what makes Bradford unique, our earthy character and the welcome which can be found in so many different homes.”

A cacao ceremony using ancient practices from Aztec or Mayan cultures will be held in Bradford Cathedral

Highlights include a five-course supper hosted by local Palestinian cook Asil Hamadi and a cacao ceremony in Bradford Cathedral, which will combine ancient practices from Aztec or Mayan cultures to aid emotional release.

The festival's showpiece event, The Commoners' Ball, will be held in the Midland Hotel.

Ms Rahman added: "It is really giving a voice and a platform to the diverse communities that we work with and that are housed in Bradford.

"They come from quite a wide range of countries; you're talking Sudan, Eritrea, Congo, Zimbabwe, Afghanistan, Kurdish communities, Iran and Iraq.

"We've got some Chinese communities in there. We’re working with the Indian and Pakistani communities.

"And I would include the people from the eastern European communities as well.

"So the diversity in all of that, as you can imagine, is quite vast."

Organiser Mussarat Rahman said the range of nationalities in Bradford is 'quite vast'

Migration Yorkshire’s refugee and asylum seeker dashboard indicated that there were 7,590 people in receipt of asylum support in Yorkshire and Humberside in September 2022.

The local authority areas with the most people seeking asylum in dispersed accommodation were Bradford (1,342 people), Leeds (1,243), and Sheffield (1,021).

They are waiting for decisions on their immigration and residency status to be made by the Home Office, but in the meantime are not permitted to work or claim state benefits.