RECENTLY, members of the community and of the major faith groups came together for the launch of Near Neighbours, a community initiative which has been running in Bradford and Keighley since 2011 and is now expanding to develop new projects in Dewsbury and North Leeds.

The idea of Near Neighbours is to bring people together who are near neighbours in communities that are ethnically and religiously diverse, so that they can get to know each other better, build relationships of trust, and then collaborate together on initiatives that improve the local communities they live in.

Near Neighbours has two main aims: firstly, it aims to develop positive relationships in multi-faith areas, to help people from different faiths get to know and understand each other better; secondly it aims to encourage people of different faiths, or of no faith, to come together to work on projects that will improve their local neighbourhood.

Often the people in these neighbourhoods share common concerns, they want a better local community, but they don’t come together to talk or act on this as much as they could. Yet, people in local communities are the ones who are ideally placed to identify and develop solutions that can improve their own neighbourhood.

If you have an idea for bringing people in your community together to help improve it, and you live in Bradford, Keighley, Leeds or Dewsbury, grants of between £250 and £5,000 are available to help get you started.

For more information on the work of Near Neighbours you can look at the national Near Neighbours website - cuf.org.uk/how-we-help/near-neighbours - or, if you would like to talk to somebody about a possible project please do contact the local Near Neighbours Co-ordinator, Wahida Shaffi, on (01274) 668312.

Let’s work together to make our communities better places for everyone!

Bradford Churches for Dialogue and Diversity