THEATRE groups and local schools have been working together on an ambitious project to help pupils learn more about human rights.

Bradford based studios Mind the Gap and Freedom Studios have been working with Grange Technology College and Carlton Bolling College to make a film about the importance of the Magna Carta, and to look at the lives of some of history's most important female figures.

Last Tuesday, which was International Women's Day, the groups put on several performances at an event at Bradford City Hall, including some based around the lives of women like Rosa Parks.

The event also doubled as the premier of the film - The Magna Carta on Trial. Last year Mind the Gap and Freedom Studios set up the film project after receiving Heritage Lottery funding of £49,700.

In June City Hall had also been the venue for the filming of the production, which featured local actors.

The ancient document, which was signed by King John at Runnymede in 1215, celebrated its 800th anniversary last year.

It set a precedent which led to it influencing later works domestically and abroad, including the US Constitution and the Bill of Rights, and the post-Second World War UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The film looked at how the document influences modern life.

The project was intended to take the historic document and make it relevant to the lives of young people by showing them how much it shaped the modern world.

The film launch acted as a culmination of the Magna Carta workshops that have been taking place over the past few months. It was tied in with International Women's Day, looking at how women have had to fight for some the very rights set out in the Magna Carta.

Pupils from Carlton Bolling College took part in a performance that saw them travel back in time to see how women like Rosa Parks, a figurehead of the black Civil Rights Movement, and Helena Normanton, the first female barrister in England, paved the way for the rights of women.

And the Grange Technology College pupils took part in a performance with the theme #equality that looked at what life is like when people are not treated as equals.

Chris Singleton, project coordinator at Mind the Gap, said: ‘International Women’s Day was a great opportunity to celebrate women who have changed the world, in history and in our own lives. It has been fascinating to work with young people and chart the development of human rights – from the Magna Carta, through the suffragettes and human rights act, right up to now.’

Mind The Gap is England’s largest learning disability theatre company while Freedom Studios is an intercultural theatre company. They both worked with the two secondary schools by holding a series of performing arts workshops.

Freedom Studios has also run a weekly drama club at Grange Technology College on the theme of equality, and fourteen students from school took part in the event at City Hall.

Grange’s Head of Performing Arts, Leila Airey said “The workshops provided by Freedom Studios and Mind the Gap have been really beneficial in building student confidence and developing their communication skills whilst learning about history and equality.

"It is also an honour for the students to perform again at such a unique and beautiful venue – just rewards for their hard work and commitment."

The Magna Carta on Trial film will be used as a resource in local schools.