Are there any activities or schemes operating in your local area, which help build respect and understanding between different communities? If there are, we would like to hear from you as they may qualify for a Community Harmony Award. The Awards, which have been held for the past five years are aimed at recognising the hard work, dedication and valuable contribution to community harmony made by local individuals, organisations, employees and businesses.
This is the sixth year of the Community Harmony Awards when the District’s local residents will be honoured and recognised for their contributions towards promoting good community relations and harmony between the District’s communities. In 2007, awards were made to individuals, groups, organisations and businesses for bringing people together through a range of activities and schemes, which were aimed at breaking down the barriers between, and making a difference across, many communities. Please see the winners of the 2007 Community Harmony Awards in section below for activities and schemes that won them the Awards.
In 2007 the judges made Awards to individuals, groups/organisations, businesses and employees whose activities and schemes were considered to be outstanding. Certificates were also presented to all nominees in celebration of their magnificent work within the District. The Lord Mayor, whilst praising ordinary people’s efforts to make Bradford a harmonious place, also expressed his admiration at the wide range of activities and schemes on offer across the District.
Seeking Nominations
If you are aware of an initiative or a scheme, which has involved at least two different communities and positively changed their view of each other, then the individuals, groups/organisations, businesses or employees responsible for it may be eligible for nomination. The nomination can be made for voluntary or paid work. People can even nominate themselves if they feel they have contributed to community harmony.
Judging Panel
This year the judging panel will consist of the Lord Mayor of Bradford, Regional Development Manager of Newsquest (Telegraph and Argus), Professor of Diversity and Director of the Centre for Inclusion and Diversity at the University of Bradford and the Community Involvement Programme co-ordinator of Bradford Trident.
The Awards Evening
Nominees along with a guest will be invited to a prestigious Awards Evening ceremony hosted by the Lord Mayor of Bradford where the judges will announce the winners who will be presented with a framed certificate. All nominees will receive a certificate acknowledging their valued work.
Photographs will be taken and activities and schemes nominated for the Award may featured in the local press.
Light refreshments will also be served, providing everyone an opportunity to mingle and converse with the judges and local dignitaries.
The deadline date for Nominations to be received is 7 March 2008. The panel’s decision will be final and no correspondence will be entered into.
Nomination forms are available from:
The Equalities Service
4th Floor
Jacob's Well
Bradford
BD1 5RW
Telephone (01274) 432776 or 434667 or you can download the form here
Winners of the Community Harmony Awards in 2007
Last year, the awards were made under the
- Individual
- Group/Organisation
- Business
- Young People
- Employee Commendation and Lifetime Achievement categories.
Individual Award
Wahid Iqbal, Jean Walker and Jean Bland received the joint winner’s award in the Individual Category.
Wahid Iqbal, a Supplementary school teacher has been part of the extended schools cluster in the Manningham area of Bradford. He has been working closely with three local primary schools (Margaret McMillan, St Cuthbert’s and Lister Primary) resulting in reduced vandalism, genuine community understanding and formation of strong links. The work includes a range of weekend and holiday activities, participation in school assemblies and other events and support to schools in understanding faith issues and practices.
Jean Walker has worked tirelessly for many years to help older people of all backgrounds in Bradford. She helped to set up a drop-in centre for older people in the lounge of St George's Hall. She is the chair, founder member and leading light of Bradford and District Senior Power. The aim of this organisation is to set up a central and easily accessible centre, which provides help and advice for older people from any part of the Bradford Metropolitan District. To achieve their goal, the group members recently travelled to London and appeared on National T.V to make a highly successful appeal for £50,000 towards this project. The group also organised a successful launch meeting held at City Hall recently. Under the guidance and dynamic leadership of this lady, the group now has a membership of over 400 people and she has achieved all this in her own time with no personal financial reward.
Jean Bland has been working with the Council officers to lead “Clean Up” campaigns to improve the environment of the area. She supports and assists individuals from all cultures with their problems and issues. For example she gave a lot of her time to enable a young Asian couple to get permission to open a Pharmacy. She has now managed to arrange for Chiropody and for elderly patients to receive flu jabs there. This means that the local people no longer have to travel to another area to receive treatment. She has also worked with Bradford Vision to obtain funding for work with young people. Her contact with Sure Start enabled young people to find a temporary place at a local church when the Sutton Community Centre was unavailable. Local concerns about crime led her to obtain funding for personal and house alarms, which she distributed personally to elderly people and young mothers.
Individual Category – Commendation Award
Val Tlamsa, Malcolm Hanson, Tony Lidington and Karen Hodgson received Commendation Awards in the Individual category.
For the past twenty years, Val Tlamsa has been a School crossing Patrol officer on Lumb Lane. He is now into his eighties but performs this duty three times a day, helping thousands of children and families cross the road safely whatever the weather. His dedication and humble nature can not be described in words. You will always see him standing beside the road with a “big” smile on his face.
Malcolm Hanson was invited to help organise events for the annual Keighley Festival who single-handedly put together one of the festival’s “Flagship” events. He organised a multi-educational event in which 30 primary and secondary schools took part. This involved hundreds of children painting replicas or new versions of “old Masters” such as Mona Lisa by Da Vinci and others by Hockney, Klee etc. Over 600 works of art were exhibited in the festival. Shopping centres, businesses, libraries and buses were then invited to offer their premises as galleries. Over a two week period in July, Keighley was awash with children’s art-work, much of which was displayed on school buses. The event proved so successful that the festival is to retain it for a second year.
Tony Lidington runs a theatrical company called Prom- Prom Promotions, which has devised workshops, performances, interactive shows and training for school staff in local schools in Manningham, community centres, streets and playgrounds as part of Bradford Festival. The company is currently working on an international story telling project. Every member of the company is committed but one individual stands out since he strives to promote a sense of whole community, acceptance and the celebration of differences and similarities through fun and enjoyment.
Karen Hodgson’s hard work in the Tenants Association has secured a number of activities for local residents which have now been extended to new communities that have come to Bradford. This includes organising community fun days and visits to seaside which would normally not take place in this area. Funds have also been raised to promote and extend activities for children and young people on Scholemoor estate.
Group/Organisation Award
Bradford Trident “Youth Forum Development Team” received Group/Organisation award for outstanding achievements, persistent dedication to assist others within the community, commitment in striving to promote an ethos of youth democracy and doing all this with a strong underlying principle of promoting and exercising community cohesion. The Youth Forum Development Team is made up of a group of local youngsters elected by young people to represent them in decision making processes both within and outside the Trident area. The group is actively involved with a number of initiatives including more recently the development and implementation of local Neighbourhood Action Groups to decide what improvements need to be made in the local area.
Young People’s Award
Re-Invention received the “Young People’s” award in Group/Organisation category to acknowledge the work of a theatrical group, which provides a platform and an opportunity for young people to show of their talents in variety shows produced by a group of youngsters. The group has staged a number of variety shows brining whole host of people from different cultures together. The main ambition of the group in organising the talents shows is to give young people the opportunity to get involved with professional productions. The proceeds from shows after expenses go towards benefiting good causes. Sam who is 20 and the main person behind the group enjoys working with young people. Behind-the-scenes crew are youngsters who have received training from Sam about how to work the stage equipment.
Business Award
Jamil Food Store received the Business Award. The store has done much work in reinforcing good relations between the different groups of people within the area and has provided the backdrop of many projects that have strengthened community cohesion and provided a sense of belonging to the residents. The store staff always tries to help customers find the goods they want. They offer a wealth of information on products and prices and on request make home deliveries. The staff’s knowledge of the community is extensive and up to date. Many customers urgently want to know the telephone number of a reliable local plumber, or properties available for rent. The store also provides an area for community notices and services, which is used free of charge. The free delivery service is provided for vulnerable people who through illness or old age are unable to come to the store.
Employee Award
The Employee Award went to George Deane, whose name is synonymous with public, private, voluntary and faith organisations for his work concerning community engagement. Over the years, he has shown unstinting enthusiasm and commitment to his work with Bradford’s diverse community groups focussing on inequalities. His determination to ensure that members of these groups are fully kept informed of developments in order that they can make positive contributions is to be admired. No task is too menial for him. He is always eager to support local people, very often in his personal time, attends meetings and events at short notices and uses his knowledge, skills and networks to advocate for disadvantage groups.
Commendation Award A joint Commendation Award went to Jo Warnes and Frances Warden.
Jo Warnes has taken a lead responsibility for developing Residential and Day Care services, which fully cater for the needs of Black and Minority Ethnic communities within Bradford and Airedale. This has involved active engagement with various community groups and has resulted in a 20% increase in the recruitment of minority ethnic staff.
Frances Warden, head teacher at Springwood Primary has over the past ten years shown tremendous commitment and dedication in building a picture of harmony by combining good citizenship and education to meet the needs of the diverse community the school serves. Her devoted attitude is reflected in her hard work, honest and caring approach to children, staff and community. The school has approximately 95% of children from minority ethnic communities. In an effort to improve children’s educational achievements, qualified ethnic minority staff members were recruited, for example a male qualified Nursery teacher who also happened to be a qualified Muslim scholar. By taking this initiative, the head teacher broke free the shackles of stereotype and turned the opportunity into a tool to bring the school and community together.
Lifetime Achievement Award
Nirmal Singh, Fazal Hussain, Dayal Sharma and Yousoof Sidat were the joint winners of the Life Time Achievement Award.
Nirmal Singh who comes from an extended family has been involved in voluntary and community work since his school days. Since coming to this country, he has presided over the presidency of the Yorkshire Sikh Forum, which has over 1500 members. He has worked very hard to create a climate where people of all faiths respect each other. As a result of this, the Bishop of Bradford invited him to become member of the interfaith group. Mr Singh along with other friends raised over £1 million for the Bradford Royal Infirmary Scanner appeal. His other charitable work includes raising money for people with disabilities, Bradford festival, earthquakes victims around the world and successive Lord Mayor’s appeals. For example, £86,000 was raised during the time of the Lord Mayor Cllr Ghazanfer Khaliq, over £100,000 for the previous Lord Mayor’s appeal and most recently for Cllr Valerie Binney’s appeal.
Fazal Hussain’s contributions to community work span over many years for which he was awarded an MBE. Since early 60’s, he has been involved in providing help, support and assistance to local people on issues relating to employment, benefits, tax enquiries, immigration matters etc. He has been actively involved in raising funds for various charitable causes and the Lord Mayors appeals.
Dayal Sharma has lived and worked in Bradford for nearly forty years. During this time, he has been a key player in the social, civic and cultural life of the District. He is currently the Chief Executive of the Euro Asian Resource. He has been working with many voluntary organisations and projects, which range from being a school governor to the treasurer of the Bradford Racial Equality Council. Mr Sharma is the former president of the Hindu Cultural Society of Bradford. In this capacity he has played a key role in promoting harmony and cohesion between different communities that live in Bradford. He is a member of the Bishop of Bradford Inner City Faith Group. He first became involved with the police through cultural and awareness training programme when as a producer for Pennine Radio; he developed a series of radio programmes aimed at informing minority ethnic communities about police work in the city.
Yousoof Sidat has been a longstanding and distinguished member of the Bradford Council for Mosques, holding the positions of the treasurer and general secretary of the organisation. He is now the president of the Council for Mosques. He has been instrumental in building the two Khidmat centres costing over £2 million in the two most deprived areas of Bradford, namely Horton Grange and West Bowling. During the last year, over 9000 women, children and older people accessed these facilities. Mr Sidat has been able to develop a working partnership with Farnham and Grange primary schools to establish a Family Learning Centre and Extended School project offering English language courses for women and homework club for school children.
The judging panel for 2007 Community Harmony Awards were Councillor Choudhary Rangzeb, the Lord Mayor; Elaine Appleby, Chief Executive Bradford Vision; Linda Ralph, Regional Development Manager, Newsquest and Nazma Hafeez, Training Advisor, Rathbone.
The Lord Mayor Councillor Choudhary Rangzeb said “It was very pleasing to see nominations for this year’s Community Harmony Awards from a wide range of people. I am sure that their work is making a positive contribution not only to their localities but to the District as a whole. They truly deserve reorganisation and admiration”.
“I hope that the awards will encourage other people to engage in initiatives aimed at bringing people together to create a better future for everyone”.
